Thousands of netizens have in the past week signed a petition to bar Amazon founder Jeff Bezos from re-entering Earth after his space company Blue Origin’s launches a trip to the edge of space next month, the media reported.

The petition addressed to the Blue Origin is titled ‘Petition To Not Allow Jeff Bezos Re-Entry To Earth,’ on the change.org urges people to sign to keep him out, adding ‘The fate of humanity is in your hands’, the Daily Mail reported.

The page on Sunday has 18,114 signatures.

Bezos is all set for a trip to the edge of space aboard New Shepard on July 20 with his brother Mark and two others, including the winner of a 28 million pound auction. The flight will mark the company’s first mission flying humans. July 20 is also the 52nd anniversary of Apollo 11 moon landing.

The petition compares Bezos to Superman villain Lex Luthor.

“Jeff Bezos is actually Lex Luthor, disguised as the supposed owner of a super successful online retail store,” read the petition, adding, he’s “actually an evil overlord hellbent on global domination”.

“We’ve known this for years. Jeff has worked with the Epsteins and the Knights Templar, as well as the Free Masons to gain control over the whole world. He’s also in bed with the flat earth deniers; it’s the only way they’ll allow him to leave the atmosphere. Meanwhile, our government stands by and lets it happen.

“This may be our last chance before they enable the 5G microchips and perform a mass takeover,” the petitioners wrote.

The creator of the petition, Jose Ortiz, suggested the upcoming spaceflight was a perfect opportunity to rid the world of the man he describes as an ‘evil overlord’ and urges Blue Origin to stop the rocket from returning to Earth, the Daily Mail report said.

Bezos had announced in February he will be stepping down as CEO at the apex of his career to focus on innovations. Last month, he announced that Andy Jassy, the current CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), will take over as the CEO of the e-commerce giant on July 5.

The five-storey-tall New Shepard rocket, named after the first American in space Alan Shepard, Ais designed to launch a crew capsule with seats for six roughly 340,000 feet into the sky toward the edge of space. Paying tourists can experience a few minutes of weightlessness in microgravity and witness super high-altitude views of Earth.

The booster is topped by a gumdrop-shaped Crew Capsule with space for six passengers inside and large windows.

After reaching the Karman line, the internationally recognized boundary of Earth’s outermost atmosphere, which is 100 km above sea level, the capsule will detach from the booster, allowing those inside to view the curvature of the earth and experience weightlessness.

The booster and capsule will then land separately, with the capsule landing in the west Texas desert with the help of parachutes.