Businessmen replace stars at the Met Gala

This year's Met Gala raised a record $42 million, but many were unhappy with the fact that a large portion of it was contributed by American businessman Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, Whole Foods, and The Washington Post.

“The Met Gala is usually packed with celebrities eager to show off their best interpretations of the annual theme. It's an event where a stylist can make you famous or completely ruin you, and some of them even become famous themselves. This represents a significant change for an event traditionally marked by supermodels, actors and musicians. For decades, the Met Gala guest list has looked like a list of the fashion and entertainment elite, where Rihanna's outfit ends up on the covers and designers compete to see whose creation will be worn up the museum's famous steps,” writes Fortune portal.

But this year, instead of stars, technology CEOs and company founders attracted attention.

“Money from the tech sector propelled the Met Gala to its most successful fundraising year ever. The event raised a record $42 million for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, up significantly from last year’s record $31 million. The main sponsors were not a fashion house or a Hollywood studio, but Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos, who reportedly donated $10 million,” the text added.

Ahead of the event, protesters were calling out the tech elite for their presence at the gala. One activist group put up signs reading “Boycott Bezos’ Met Ball” across New York City and projected slogans onto buildings near Bezos’ penthouse. In one video, a 72-year-old Amazon warehouse worker criticized Bezos for hosting the lavish event while most workers live paycheck to paycheck. Actor Mark Ruffalo, who hasn’t attended the Met Gala since 2012, helped create the Instagram video. Singer Olivia Rodrigo, who has attended the gala the past three years, didn’t attend this year but liked the video.

Taraji P. Henson, who previously attended the Gala, decided to skip the event this year and commented:

"I'm really confused about some of the people who are going. What are we actually doing?"

Bella Hadid, who also attended the Gala previously, liked the video and did not appear this year.

While some celebrities boycotted the Met Gala, a large number of businessmen were among the guests.

Amazon, Meta, OpenAI and Snapchat each purchased tables for $350, while individual tickets were priced at $100, up from about $75 last year. Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, OpenAI’s director of partnerships Charles Porch, and Amazon executives Christine Beauchamp and Jenny Freshwater all walked the red carpet. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was attending the Met Gala for the first time, though he and Bezos both skipped the red carpet and quietly entered the museum. Lauren Sanchez Bezos, however, walked the carpet wearing Schiaparelli.