Ever since he stepped down as the CEO of Amazon, Bezos has been very invested in his space tourism company, Blue Origin. The company has been in existence since 2000, but its first flight carrying human passengers took place in July of 2021. In a statement posted on their website, Blue Origin states:

“Blue Origin successfully completed New Shepard’s first human flight today with four private citizens onboard. The crew included Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen, who all officially became astronauts when they passed the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized boundary of space.”
-Gradatim Ferociter, Blue Origin

Despite Bezos having described this experience as his “Best Day Ever!,” a lot of people were unimpressed with the entrepreneur. People criticized him for spending billions of dollars on this project while Amazon employees are being paid less than a living wage and are subjected to exploitative working conditions. A few months later, 90-year-old actor William Shatner broke the record for being the oldest person to travel to space. Someone who declined Bezos’ invitation, though, was actor Tom Hanks. In a late-night talk show, Hanks revealed that Bezos had asked for a $28 million check in exchange for said trip.

Blue Origin has also been facing a few problems in recent years. It has been accused by employees of having a culture of sexism and discrimination. While the company has taken a public stance saying that they do not tolerate this kind of behavior, not much has been said about how they plan on tackling this serious issue.

While this has been happening internally at the company, it has also been embroiled in a legal dispute with NASA, claiming it had been unfairly denied a lunar lander contract that was given to SpaceX. This lawsuit was unsuccessful, yet the competition between SpaceX and Blue Origin continues. Blue Origin is currently pursuing a NASA contract to create private space stations.