{"id":1644713,"date":"2026-05-02T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T13:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/observer.com\/?p=1644713"},"modified":"2026-05-01T16:21:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:21:02","slug":"jeff-bezos-lauren-sanchez-bezos-met-gala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2026\/05\/jeff-bezos-lauren-sanchez-bezos-met-gala\/","title":{"rendered":"The Met Gala Is Entering Its Billionaire Era With Jeff Bezos and Lauren S\u00e1nchez"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos, are pictured at the 2024 Met Gala. Photo by Kevin Mazur\/MG24\/Getty Images for The Met Museum<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The official co-chairs of Monday’s Met Gala<\/a> include Beyonc\u00e9, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams, and, of course, Anna Wintour. Yet the star-studded lineup has been overshadowed by the event’s “honorary chairs,” a largely ceremonial title that has drawn outsized attention this year. Instead of designers, actors, musicians or athletes, the roles have gone to billionaires Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos.<\/p>\n

This isn’t the first time members of the tech elite have appeared at the Met Gala\u2014Bezos himself attended in 2012, 2019 and 2024<\/a>. But the prominence of his involvement this year has sparked a wave of criticism, shining a light on Silicon Valley\u2019s increasingly influential role in fashion\u2019s biggest night.<\/p>\n

A growing relationship between the Met Gala and tech executives is “a new phenomenon in terms of the broader history of the gala, which was really about fashion,” Deirdre Clemente, a fashion historian at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told Observer.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1948 by publicist Eleanor Lambert, the Met Gala began as a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Costume Institute, attended primarily by New York City socialites. It was a far cry from today\u2019s global spectacle. The shift toward celebrity accelerated in the 1970s under former Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland, and by the time Wintour took over as chair in 1995, the event was well on its way to becoming a cultural juggernaut. (Wintour recently stepped down as editor-in-chief of Vogue U.S.<\/a> but remains its global editorial director.)<\/p>\n

As the Met Gala’s profile has risen, so has its price of entry. Tickets\u2014available only to guests approved by Wintour\u2014cost $100,000, while tables start at $350,000. As tech companies have amassed enormous wealth, they\u2019ve increasingly stepped in to foot the bill in exchange for cultural cachet. This year\u2019s table buyers reportedly include Amazon, OpenAI, Meta and Snap.<\/a><\/p>\n

“I’m calling it the ‘Tech Gala<\/a>,’ because so much tech has gotten involved over the last decade,” Amy Odell, the author of the 2022 Wintour biography\u00a0Anna<\/em>, told Observer. “Over the years, the price of admission has become so high that it’s just like, who else can afford it?”<\/p>\n

Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and S\u00e1nchez Bezos are also serving as the lead sponsors for this year’s event. But it was the announcement of their roles as honorary chairs in February that ignited backlash. Despite Wintour defending S\u00e1nchez Bezos as a “wonderful asset to the museum and the event<\/a>” in a recent CNN interview, criticism has continued to mount. An anti-billionaire activist group known as “Everyone Hates Elon,” has even plastered New York City with posters<\/a> calling for a boycott.<\/p>\n

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