Elizabeth Warren took aim at Jeff Bezos, saying 'the richest guy on Earth can launch himself into space while over half the country lives paycheck to paycheck'

  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a jab at Jeff Bezos over his recent spaceflight.

  • Warren said if the billionaire could go to space, he could afford to pay more in taxes.

  • ProPublica reported that Bezos paid $0 in income taxes for at least two years from 2006 to 2018.

  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted Sunday about Jeff Bezos' recent spaceflight, saying that if he could afford to go to space, he could afford to pay more in taxes.

"The richest guy on Earth can launch himself into space while over half the country lives paycheck to paycheck, nearly 43 million are saddled with student debt, and child care costs force millions out of work," Warren tweeted. "He can afford to pitch in so everyone else gets a chance."

Bezos, the founder and former CEO of Amazon, paid $0 in federal income taxes for at least two years from 2006 to 2018, ProPublica reported in June. The bombshell report also revealed Tesla CEO Elon Musk did the same thing in 2018.

Read more: Compare more than 250,000 salaries from top companies like Amazon, Google and JPMorgan with Insider's Salary Database

Insider's Lynnley Browning reported in 2019 that Amazon also paid $0 in income taxes in 2017 and 2018.

Bezos is listed by Forbes as the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $209.2 billion.

The billionaire's space-exploration company, Blue Origin, successfully completed its first passenger spaceflight on Tuesday, launching Bezos and three others into space for about three minutes of weightlessness.

Warren had also taken a jab at Bezos over the flight last week, writing on Twitter: "Jeff Bezos forgot to thank all the hardworking Americans who actually paid taxes to keep this country running while he and Amazon paid nothing."

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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