Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, fresh from his 11-minute space trip, thanked Amazon customers and employees for helping him achieve his dream. But his gesture, far from being appreciated, has received continuing backlash from Amazon employees, customers and several US politicians.

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Jeff Bezos had flown into space with his brother Mark Bezos, 82-year old former aviator Wally Funk and 18-year old high school graduate Oliver Daemen on July 20.

“I also want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this. So seriously, for every Amazon customer out there, and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart, very much. It's very appreciated,” Bezos had said during a press conference after the flight.

Some customers, who are Amazon Prime members and pay around $120 annually for the service, were not so appreciative though. In fact, some of them went so far as to cancel their subscriptions, saying they were not willing to fund a billionaire’s space dream.

"You guys, I just cancelled my Amazon Prime membership and feel GREAT about it," one such customer said in a private Facebook group post. "I am over paying to shop on a website and/or for a zillionaire's rocket ride. Just had to tell the world I guess."

Another Prime member told Business Insider that "the whole thing was such a spectacle of a single person amassing so much wealth that they simply have lost touch with the reality for the average person."

"I had forgotten to cancel and my membership was renewed. I had moved some money around in my budget to cover the cost of another year, and the coverage actually inspired me to log on and cancel and get a refund instead," the Business Insider report quoted the former Prime member as saying.

Amazon workers did not care much for his ‘thank you’ either, and asked for better pay and working conditions instead.

In fact, many employees also said they did not see the significance of his space flight. They tweeted their frustrations and even ridiculed his efforts to go to space when so many Amazon employees in warehouses reported inhumane working conditions.

Cathy Brown, who works for Amazon, tweeted on July 20, “My first tweet as an Amazon employee -- I’m so angry that my boss thinks going into space is more important than the people who got him there. Jeff Bezos lives on another planet and his greed is literally out of this world.”

Prominent Democratic Congresswoman from New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused Bezos of exploitative practices which helped fund his space ambitions.

“Yes, Amazon workers did pay for this -- with lower wages, union busting, a frenzied and inhumane workplace, and delivery drivers not having health insurance during a pandemic. And Amazon customers are paying for it with Amazon abusing their market power to hurt small business,” she wrote in a tweet.

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)