In an interview on Monday, Jeff Bezos stated the US Postal Service was critical in getting Amazon off the ground, due to its provision of infrastructure that early Amazon needed to fulfill its purpose. Bezos has also stated his desire to create a similar infrastructure for space travel, since it will take hundreds of millions of dollars to get anything worthwhile underway. However, such comments could potentially anger President Trump, who has often criticized Amazon’s use of the postal service.
Bezos himself believes that Amazon would not be worth the $995 billion that it is right now without the US Postal Service. This is primarily thanks to the fact that Amazon did not have to invest in a transportation and delivery network in its early days, since USPS would do it for them. Such comments were likely there to contrast Bezos in his desire to commercialize space travel. He claimed to be investing up front in order to build infrastructure. He wants to make it easier for future generations to get involved in space travel and business.
“It takes hundreds of millions of dollars to even just get started with something interesting. What I want to do is reduce that price of admission with reusable space vehicles so that the next generation you can actually have two kids in a dorm room build a great space company.”
There’s no issue with giving credit where credit is due, but there is a possibility that President Trump will be unhappy with the comments, since he has often criticized Amazon for its use of the postal service. That said, it’s unlikely that he’ll actually do anything about it, since Amazon is one of the richest companies in the world at this point, but considering that the government has been considering breaking up Amazon as a monopoly already, it probably isn’t a good idea to be getting on their bad side, especially not so high up the chain of command.
Still, it would be exciting if young entrepreneurs could have the ability to invest in space travel and commercialization in the future, so it certainly isn’t a bad thing that Bezos wants to enable something like that. It’s really just a matter of how much money he will be willing to invest, and how long it will take before he could potentially realize this overarching goal that he wants to achieve. Either way, it’s unlikely that the President will do anything other than make some scathing remarks in return, if he chooses to do anything at all.
