Blue Origin launches its first crew onboard its New Shepard rocket to outer space. The mission was crewed by American billionaire and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, pilot and Mercury 13 candidate Wally Funk and Dutch student Oliver Daemen. Funk and Daemen respectively become the oldest and youngest people ever to travel to space. 2021-07-20
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announces that he will step down as CEO during the third quarter. Current Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy is expected to replace him. 2021-02-2
Elon Musk overtakes Jeff Bezos by just over US$4 billion to become the richest person in the world. 2021-01-7
UN special rapporteurs Agnès Callamard and David Kaye demand an investigation into claims made by "The Guardian" yesterday that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the 2018 hacking of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos's phone. The hack was allegedly done months before the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, who was employed at Bezos's newspaper "The Washington Post" and was a fierce critic of the Saudi government. The Saudi Foreign Ministry dismisses the allegations as "absurd". 2020-01-22
Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak, who was cited in "Washington Post" reports yesterday that American intelligence overheard him telling Moscow about his election-related discussions with a Trump campaign official, ends his nine-year assignment and leaves the United States. In May 2017, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Antonov was approved as the next ambassador. 2017-07-22
The European Court of Justice decides an international agreement, generally known as a Safe Harbor rule, used by thousands of companies for moving people’s digital data between the European Union and the United States is invalid, effective immediately. The decision throws into doubt how global technology giants like Facebook, Amazon and Google can collect, manage, and analyze online information from their millions of users in the 28-member bloc. Decisions by this court, the highest legal authority in the EU, cannot be appealed. 2015-10-6
In the United States, the NASDAQ and S&P 500 end at record highs spurred by strong results by tech giants Google, Amazon and Microsoft. 2015-04-24
"The Washington Post" reports that the military forces imprisoned alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning to strip each night and sleep naked, having confiscated his boxers earlier this week following Manning's protest that restrictions imposed on him were "absurd". A spokesperson for the facility denies "any sort of humiliation or embarrassment" is intended. 2011-03-6
"The Washington Post" reports that the WikiLeaks website is stronger than ever and has increased support among netizens despite widespread attempts to shut it down. 2010-12-8
Orlando Figes agrees to pay damages to Rachel Polonsky and Robert Service for fake book reviews he posted on Amazon.com. 2010-07-16