Amazon briefly added a superhero to its organizational chart, and some workers weren't amused. On Thursday, employees logging into Amazon's internal directory found Chris Hemsworth listed as "Chief Heartthrob" for Alexa devices, complete with an Amazon email, a side gig as a "bar raiser" (an internal hiring role), and a tongue-in-cheek bio touting his hobbies, from bear wrestling to hammer throwing, per Reuters. Colleagues even began awarding him digital badges for his CPR skills and flan appreciation, nearly 500 in all.
The fake hire was part of a marketing push for Amazon's Super Bowl ad promoting Alexa's new generative-AI features. In the commercial, which Amazon notes co-stars Hemsworth's real-life wife, Elsa Pataky, Hemsworth imagines a series of over-the-top deaths at the hands of a rogue Alexa—garage door mishap, pool disaster, bear attack—before the voice assistant reassures the 42-year-old Thor star it's here to help, not harm. Amazon has been trying to remake Alexa, a longtime financial bust, into a more capable AI assistant and recently announced Alexa+ would roll out to all Prime members.
Inside the company, though, the stunt landed hard. It followed Amazon's layoff of about 16,000 corporate workers, including many on the Alexa team, and a disappointing earnings report that hit the company's stock. The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, also began large job cuts this week, eliminating roughly a third of its staff. On an internal social platform, one Amazon employee sarcastically wrote that Hemsworth's appearance totally made up for "the hollow feeling of cleaning out my peer's desk" after that colleague was laid off; another called the move more insult than joke.
An Amazon spokesperson described the Hemsworth listing as a "fun internal Easter egg" ahead of the Super Bowl and didn't address staff frustration. Hemsworth's reps didn't comment. By late Thursday, the actor's profile had been quietly adjusted: The "Chief Heartthrob" has apparently received a demotion and now reports to the head of devices and services.
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