Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to trash Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for their efforts to take America to space.
He made the remarks in a discussion on the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which would provide a massive subsidy to Bezos’ company. “This bill would provide and authorize $10 billion in taxpayer money to Jeff Bezos, the second wealthiest person in America, for his space race with Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in America,” Sanders said. This is beyond laughable.
“It is not acceptable that the two wealthiest people in this country … take control of our space efforts to return to the moon, and maybe even the extraordinary accomplishment of getting to the moon,” he added, presumably with the intention of saying “Mars” in his second reference to the moon. “This is not something for two billionaires to be directing. This is something for the American people to be determining.”
Bezos’ Blue Origin routinely loses government contracts to Musk’s SpaceX, though the litigious Bezos has a reputation for using attorneys and lobbyists to nonetheless win government funding. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), who counts Bezos among her Washington state constituents, proposed the $10 billion earlier this year as part of a contract that Congress would order NASA to give Bezos’ company after it lost an earlier contract to SpaceX.
Sanders did not articulate
Watch above via C-SPAN.