'Keep Jeff Bezos In Space' Petition Started In Ferndale, Michigan

FERNDALE, MI — Jeff Bezos, the filthy rich founder of Amazon, plans to go to space next month on his New Shepard spacecraft. Tens of thousands of people don’t want him to return to Earth.

Yes, there’s a petition for that.

It was started by Ric G, whose profile on Change.org lists a hometown of Ferndale, Michigan, a Detroit suburb that’s known as an enclave for free-thinking progressives.

As Ric G sees it, billionaires “should not exist.”

They shouldn’t exist “on earth, or in space,” he wrote on the petition site, “but should they decide on the latter they should stay there.”

Ric G directed the petition to someone known as “the proletariat” — a term often used in reference to Marxism to describe the working-class people. So, with a delicious bit of irony, it seems Ric G has appealed to the universe to keep Bezos perpetually in orbit.

Lots of people think Ric G is pretty smart, is on to something or is just plain funny.

As of Tuesday morning, nearly 78,000 people had signed the petition to keep Jeff Bezos in space. Some of their reasons strike to the core of what bothers people so much about the ultra rich — multibillionaires who paid no taxes.

Now the world’s richest man, Bezos isn’t alone. He paid zero federal income taxes in 2007 and 2011, according to a ProPublica report. Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, paid no income taxes in 2018. Others on the list include former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and investors Carl Icahn and George Soros.

Of Bezos’ upcoming trip to space, “maybe you can come back if you pay some tax, jerk,” wrote one person signing the petition.

“Jeff Bezos wanted to go to space; I want him to stay away from Earth,” the comment continued. “This way we both get what we want!”

Musk, whose SpaceX was the first private company to successfully launch and return spacecraft from Earth’s orbit and began crewed flights in May 2020, has toyed with the idea of going to space himself. The hundreds of comments on the petition didn’t reveal any particular agenda to keep Musk in space if he decides to go there, and some petition-signers gave him a pass because his Tesla electric cars don’t depend on fossil fuels.

The notion that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg should be left in space with Musk had quite a few followers, though.

The comments are a gold mine of poster slogans for the 99 percenters.

They’re particularly heavy with various references to “eat the rich” — it’s not literally meant, we’re certain, but as a term often associated with socialism in opposition to wealth inequality.

“Being let back into earth is a privilege — not a right,” someone wrote. “If he wants back in he’s gotta work for it.”

Yeah, that’s it exactly, another person agreed:

“If he wants to come back he's gonna have to pay rent to live on the planet we're working hard to maintain for him.”

“Greed is ravaging the planet,” another person wrote, “and he is one of the most visible symptoms of it.”

And, of course, there were many extra helpings of profanity, troll-ery and just plain poor taste.

Bezos had a sprinkling of defenders, including one person who signed the petition because the idea of leaving the billionaire in space “is funny.”

“I have nothing against him or his company,” that person wrote, adding, “I really admire how he changed the internet and our world.”

And there were others who think Bezos should face some justice here on Earth:

“You know the saying one bad apple ruins the whole bushel? Jeff is a bad apple in the capitalist bushel,” wrote one person, who pointed out the Supreme Court should take an interest in Amazon’s labor practices.

“I doubt we can hold him in space,” the person wrote, “but it would be nice to lock him out of the atmosphere.”

The 57-year-old Bezos, who has a personal fortune of $167 billion, is stepping down as Amazon’s CEO and will become the online shopping behemoth’s executive chair. He will also focus on further development of Blue Origin and his newspaper, The Washington Post.