AOC blasts Bezos after space voyage, says that Amazon workers paid for trip with 'lower wages, inhumane workplace'

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was not pleased with a response from Jeff Bezos about his space voyage.
• "Amazon workers did pay for this - with lower wages, union busting, a frenzied and inhumane workplace," Ocasio-Cortez said.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized Jeff Bezos following his return to Earth after briefly flying to space with Blue Origin, the spaceflight company he started in 2000.

After Bezos' brief orbital trip, he addressed a crowd while donning a cowboy hat, saying he wanted "thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this."

-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 20, 2021

Ocasio-Cortez responded on Twitter, telling Bezos: "Yes, Amazon workers did pay for this - with lower wages, union busting, a frenzied and inhumane workplace, and delivery drivers not having health insurance during a pandemic."

"And Amazon customers are paying for it with Amazon abusing their market power to hurt small business," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

An employee at an Amazon warehouse in Indiana, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisal, said workers did not seem aware that Bezos - who stepped down as company CEO earlier this month - was blasting off today.

"It's just business as usual for us," they told Insider.

They were not particularly impressed by their former boss' gratitude for enabling the trip, either.

"I guess he's thanking us for putting the money in his pocket to do so by our hard work, sacrificing our bonuses and stock options to make it possible," they said. "We didn't get anything out of it."

Do you work at Amazon? Email your thoughts to these reporters: cdavis@insider.com and aharoun@insider.com