Jeff Bezos, who is soon to assume chair as the executive chairman of Amazon, will fly to space on the first space flight by his rocket company Blue Origin on July 20.

HIGHLIGHTS

• A man with probably a lot of money in his accounts just shelled out $28 million to share the spacecraft with the world’s richest man, Bezos
• The name of the anonymous bidder has not been revealed, but Blue Origin has said that the name would be out in a few days. 
• The company said that the entire $28 million would be donated to its Clue for the Future foundation. 

Did you know Jeff Bezos was looking for a co-passenger to fly to space? Well, even if you had known you would have had to pay a hefty amount to secure a seat alongside Jeff Bezos. But that’s hardly an issue for people with deep pockets. A man with probably a lot of money in his accounts just shelled out $28 million to share the spacecraft with the world’s richest man, Bezos. The name of the anonymous bidder has not been revealed, but Blue Origin has said that the name would be out in a few days.

“Today, Blue Origin concluded the online auction for the very first seat on New Shepard with a winning bid of $28 million. Nearly 7,600 people registered to bid from 159 countries. The winning bidder will fly to space on New Shepard’s first human flight on July 20, and will join Blue Origin founder, Jeff Bezos, and his brother, Mark,” Blue Origin said in a statement.

Jeff Bezos, who is soon to assume chair as the executive chairman of Amazon , will fly to space on the first space flight by his rocket company Blue Origin on July 20. Bezos will be accompanied by his brother Mark Bezos and now the bidder too will join him on his flight to outer space. The auction for the seat ended on June 12. The company said that the entire $28 million would be donated to its Clue for the Future foundation.

“The winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, Club for the Future, whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space,” the company said.

Bezos has earlier said that he had dreamed of travelling to space ever since he was five years of age.“You see the earth from space and it changes you. It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It’s one Earth,” Bezos says in the video. “I want to go on this flight because it’s the thing I’ve wanted to do all my life. It’s an adventure. It’s a big deal for me.”

Earlier, Bezos announced that he would formally step down as CEO and co-founder of Amazon on July 5. Bezos informed his employees through a letter about his decision to step down as the CEO. He will now take over as the executive chairman of the company in the third quarter of this year. Bezos will be replaced by the head of Amazon’s cloud division Amazon Web Services (AWS) Andy Jassy.