What Happened When Prince William Met Jeff Bezos After Originally Criticizing His Trip To Space?
In July, the world's richest man Jeff Bezos lit up Twitter after boarding a rocket developed by his Blue Origin space company, and traveling to near space and back. The Internet had *thoughts* about Bezos' interstellar jaunt, especially because the Amazon CEO seemed to be competing with Tesla's Elon Musk to turn space into a money-making industry for his brand. "I'm so antagonized by billionaires in space. Spend billions saving forests, feeding people, cleaning up water sources, restoring ecosystems, investigating technology that reduces the impact of climate change, paying living wages, anything. Anything but billionaires in space," one user tweeted, echoing concerns that Bezos' space venture was both highly expensive and environmentally taxing.
Regardless, the space race continued in October, when "Star Trek" actor William Shatner boarded Bezos' rocket and became the oldest man to go to space. This time, Prince William spoke to the BBC about his thoughts on the wave of space tourism, which he felt was irresponsible in light of more pressing matters. "We need some of the world's greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live," he said. Adding that he'd seen a rise in "climate anxiety" among younger generations, the prince made it clear he had zero interest in going to space. But did he change his tune when he met Bezos at the United Nations COP26 climate summit in November?
Prince William spoke to Jeff Bezos about the Earthshot Prize
While Prince William urged billionaires to get their heads out of the clouds mere weeks before meeting Jeff Bezos, he certainly seemed happy to see the Amazon CEO at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland. In an image posted to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's Twitter page, Prince William was seen shaking Bezos' hand as the two appeared deep in conversation. "Great to meet @JeffBezos earlier today to discuss the @Earthshotprize and how we scale up our Winners' and Finalists' incredible solutions #COP26," the caption read.
In 2020, William founded the Earthshot Prize, which aims to help fund young people creating potentially climate-saving projects. Per People, the Duke of Cambridge underscored his commitment to climate change by taking the 15 Earthshot prize finalists along with him to the summit, including 15-year-old Vinisha Umashankar. According to The Washington Post, the teenager (and youngest finalist) invented a solar-powered ironing machine for street vendors to help reduce pollution in India's air, prompting praise from William. "Especially proud to see Vinisha speaking in front of the world, demanding change so that her generation can have a better future," he later tweeted. William clearly believes in his Earthshot finalists, who show that "we humans have the ingenuity to make the seemingly impossible, possible," as he said at the summit, per People. A desire to make the impossible possible is something he and Bezos may have in common.