Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is facing criticism for plans to spend billions on space travel as his workers sleep in tents to save money and pee in bottles to avoid missing their daily work targets.
Bezos, the world’s richest man, recently told Business Insider that the “only way” he sees how he can spend so much money is by converting his “Amazon winnings” into space travel. But Twitter has some other ideas about how Bezos could use his “winnings” to help improve the planet he actually lives on first.
Some users suggested that Bezos could spend his money on schools, roads, healthcare and other public services before throwing billions at space travel.
Is it to actually pay Amazon workers pic.twitter.com/zZj9ulb3OT
— Jules (@Julian_Epp) May 2, 2018
Amazon has repeatedly been criticized for poor treatment of its workers and failure to pay a real living wage. A 2017 investigation by an undercover reporter for the Daily Mirror found that workers at the retail giant are treated “like animals” and forced to work to the point of physical collapse.
Another exposé found that some of Amazon’s warehouses lacked air-conditioning and the company “arranged to have paramedics parked in ambulances outside” in the hot summer months for workers who fainted during their grueling work.
Recent figures show the median income for an Amazon worker is $28,446 while at Facebook it is $240,430 and $197,274 at Google.
But, according to Bezos, who is worth $131 billion, his space company Blue Origin, which plans to send humans into space as early as this year, is the “most important work” he is doing.