The Star Trek character you probably didn’t know Jeff Bezos played

Many Trekkies may find it curious that someone like Jeff Bezos (who admittedly gave bad advice to the showrunners of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”) is a Trekkie. After all, “Star Trek” takes place in a post-capitalist society in which humanity is no longer motivated by the accumulation of wealth. Basically, social classes have been erased and technology allows everyone to live comfortably, without need. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos is one of the richest people on the planet and is said to be worth more than $237 billion. He owns Amazon and the Washington Post and, in recent years, has been spreading his money among the American right, showing financial support for the country’s most unpleasant politicians. It also stopped the Post from endorsing Kamala Harris for president. Bezos has been described as an oligarch and is undoubtedly one of the most insidious supracapitalists on Earth. These are not the philosophical views of Gene Roddenberry’s futuristic utopia.

Where Bezos and “Star Trek” overlap, however, is in their interest in stars. Bezos owns a private rocket-building company called Blue Origin that has been launching spacecraft into the upper atmosphere for years. In fact, in 2022, “Star Trek” star William Shatner took a ride on a Blue Origin rocket, spiritually uniting Trek and Bezos in an abstract way. Bezos certainly isn’t the pacifist communist one might see on “Star Trek,” but he does seem to want to send people into space. Bezos is also a major investor in Fandom.com, the website that hosts Memory Alpha, the largest “Star Trek” fan site on the web.

As it happens, Bezos had a previous brush with Trek in 2016, as he had a cameo in Justin Lin’s “Star Trek Beyond,” the 13th feature film in the series. According to Memory Alpha, Bezos played an alien doctor… named Bezos.

Jeff Bezos will not be recognizable. Not only does he appear on screen for 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 in an escape pod and was rescued by the USS Enterprise. Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) brought her aboard and interrogated her when she revealed that she 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 destroys the Enterprise and the crew must escape to the planet’s surface to survive.

When Kalara was questioned, a group of Federation doctors scanned and examined her, clearly ensuring that she was fine. One of the doctors was Jeff Bezos.

According to Memory Alpha, Bezos’ love for “Star Trek” has manifested itself in many ways. He purchased one of the eight-foot filming models of the USS Enterprise, used in some of the Trek films. She named her dog Kamala, after a character played by Famke Janssen in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Bezos also liked voice-operated computers in “Next Generation” and clearly modeled Amazon’s Alexa after them.

Bezos’s politics may be the polar opposite of “Star Trek,” but one would hope that one day he will rewatch the series and realize that. Since he was in one of the movies, he might be encouraged to do it. 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.