Many Trekkies might find it curious that someone like Jeff Bezos (who certainly gave bad advice to the showrunners of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”) would be a Trekkie. “Star Trek,” after all, takes place in a post-capitalist society in which humanity is no longer motivated by the accumulation of wealth. Social classes have practically been erased and technology allows everyone to live comfortably, without need. Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, is one of the richest people on the planet, with a fortune estimated at more than $237 billion. He owns Amazon and the Washington Post and has, in recent years, spread his money around the American right, demonstrating his financial support for the country’s most unsavory politicians. He also blocked the Post from endorsing Kamala Harris for president. Bezos has been described as an oligarch and is certainly one of the most insidious supracapitalists on the planet. These are not the philosophical views of Gene Roddenberry’s futuristic utopia.
Where Bezos and “Star Trek” overlap, however, is in the interest in the stars. Bezos owns a private rocket-building company called Blue Origin that has been launching craft into the upper atmosphere for years. Indeed, in 2022, “Star Trek” star William Shatner took a ride aboard a Blue Origin rocket, somehow spiritually bringing Trek and Bezos together in an abstract way. Bezos certainly isn’t the pacifist communist you might see in “Star Trek,” but he seems to want to send people into space. Bezos is also a major investor in Fandom.com, the website that hosts Memory Alpha, the web’s largest “Star Trek” fansite.
It turns out that Bezos already had contact with Trek in 2016, as he made an appearance in “Star Trek Beyond” by Justin Lin the 13th feature film in the series. According to Memory Alpha, Bezos played an alien doctor… named Bezos.
Jeff Bezos played an alien doctor in Star Trek Beyond
Jeff Bezos will not be recognizable. Not only is he on screen for only a few seconds in “Star Trek Beyond,” but his famous bald head is covered in elaborate alien makeup. He appeared near the beginning of the film when the character of Kalara (Lydia Wilson) was introduced. Kalara appeared on an escape pod and was rescued by the USS Enterprise. She was brought aboard and interrogated by Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) when she revealed that she had fled a disaster she encountered around a planet called Altamid and that her ship was now stranded there. The Enterprise goes to Altamid to help, but it was a trap. A massive swarm of miniature attack ships tears the Enterprise to shreds, and the crew must escape to the planet’s surface to survive.
When Kalara was questioned, she was scanned and examined by a group of Federation doctors, clearly making sure she was fine. One of the doctors was Jeff Bezos.
According to Memory Alpha, Bezos’ love of “Star Trek” manifested itself in several ways. He purchased one of the eight-foot filming models of the USS Enterprise, used in some of the Trek feature films. He named his dog Kamala, after a character played by Famke Janssen on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Bezos also liked “Next Generation” voice-controlled computers and clearly modeled Amazon’s Alexa after them.
Bezos’s politics may be the polar opposite of “Star Trek,” but one would hope he’ll watch the show again one day and realize it. Given that he was in one of the films, perhaps he will be encouraged to do so. The man understands the technological element of “Star Trek”, but not the message that unity, pacifism and anti-capitalism were the means to achieve it.
