Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos are not just attending the Met Gala. According to Page Six, they have paid at least $10 million to sponsor Monday night’s event, a move that places them firmly inside Anna Wintour’s most scrutinized circle.
The couple are honorary co-chairs this year alongside Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Wintour herself. They are also expected to sit with close friends including Kris Jenner at the dinner.
For the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the money supports the Anna Wintour Costume Center. For fashion insiders, the sponsorship says something sharper about where power, money and taste now meet.
“The Bezoses are where the American dream is at right now for status, wealth and style,” former Vogue editor William Norwich told Page Six. “They display conspicuous consumption [and] they have the ‘AWOK’ - the Anna Wintour OK.”
A very expensive seat at fashion’s biggest table
This year’s Met Gala theme is “Costume Art,” and sources told Page Six the Bezos name appears prominently on the invitations. One source said the couple’s backing is at least $10 million. Another person familiar with the matter suggested the total could be as high as $20 million.
Representatives for the Bezoses and the Metropolitan Museum were contacted for comment by Page Six.
The sponsorship lands after Sánchez Bezos, 56, received a very public Vogue embrace last June, when she appeared on a digital cover tied to her lavish Venice wedding to Bezos, 62. Guests at the wedding included Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey and Leonardo DiCaprio. There were also rumors that Wintour helped choose Sánchez Bezos’ Dolce & Gabbana bridal gown, though sources close to the couple dismissed that claim.
The couple’s presence in elite fashion circles has only grown. This week, they also attended a White House state dinner honoring Britain’s King Charles and Queen Camilla, where Sánchez Bezos wore 200 carats of emeralds.
One fashion insider described the pair as America’s new “bizarro” royalty. Another frequent Met Gala guest was less amused.
“I’m heartbroken,” the guest told Page Six. “It’s being able to buy yourself into [the good graces of] Anna and the Met.”
The Met Gala’s old prestige versus its new balance sheet
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the former Vogue special events planner who ran the Met Gala for more than a decade and is often described as one of its key architects, said the moment reflects a wider shift.
“For me, it’s not just about the gala, it reflects a broader shift in the world we’re living in,” Winston Wolkoff said. “There was a time when access to spaces like the Met Gala, or even the pages of Vogue, wasn’t something you could simply obtain, it was something you grew into through your influence, your work and your impact. It carried a sense of prestige that felt earned, not transactional.”
She added: “The gala has evolved. And, in many ways, it’s become something different. It used to be a true celebration of designers, their muses and the artistry behind fashion. Every person on that carpet felt intentional, like they were part of a larger narrative.
“That sense of purpose feels less defined now.”
Winston Wolkoff later wrote the bestseller Melania & Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship With The First Lady about her time connected to the White House.
Wintour’s side of the equation is clear enough: the Met Gala is a cultural spectacle, but it is also a fundraising machine. Last year, the event raised $31 million, the highest gross in its 77-year history.
Page Six reports that Norwich and another fashion insider believe Wintour, now 76, would likely have approached the Bezoses about financing the gala at least two years ago. Other sources said Wintour made the request after the Bezos wedding.
Wintour remains Chief Content Officer for Condé Nast and Global Editorial Director of Vogue after handing over day-to-day control of the magazine to Chloe Malle earlier this year.
Why fashion is watching the Bezos money so closely
As of April, Bloomberg estimated Bezos’ fortune at between $230 billion and $241 billion. He is still executive chairman of Amazon, the company he founded as an online bookstore in his garage in Bellevue, Washington, in 1995.
His relationship with the Met Gala is not new. Fashion writer Amy Odell noted that Bezos first sponsored the event through Amazon in 2012, with Wintour offering him fashion advice before the gala. At the time, she said, the move did not create anything like the current debate.
The difference now is visibility, celebrity and Sánchez Bezos’ role as a luxury-fashion client in her own right.
“They are part of the 2% of fashion buyers who represent 40% of luxury sales,” Odell said. “And fashion has reorganized around to catering to this group. Lauren is the archetype of this clientele. She’s trying to make it OK again to flaunt your material excess … a lot of rich people would like to do that.”
In industry terms, that makes the couple VICs, or Very Important Clients. It is not subtle, but neither is a $100,000 ticket.
Sánchez Bezos recently told The New York Times she was “super proud” of the fitted white Alexander McQueen pantsuit she wore to Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, despite criticism after cameras captured her lace bra underneath.
“I get it,” she said. “No lace at the White House. Noted.”
Odell said some corners of the luxury world see a clear commercial upside in embracing clients who are happy to show jewels, gowns and couture on Instagram.
“They want to be on Instagram showing off their jewels, gowns and couture,” Odell said. “And some in the industry want to embrace this from a business perspective: You can buy stuff and show it off.”
But she also noted the political and cultural friction: “Fashion is a lefty industry, however, and a lot of people do not like to see them involved.”
Not everyone is showing up
The guest list is also drawing attention for who will not be there.
Page Six Hollywood reported that frequent Met Gala attendee and Moda Operandi entrepreneur Lauren Santo Domingo is skipping the ball. Several major designers are also not expected to attend, including Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière and Jonathan Anderson of JW Anderson.
Meryl Streep, who plays a fictionalized version of Wintour in The Devil Wears Prada films, also declined an invitation to co-chair. A source said her decision had nothing to do with Bezos.
“Meryl has been invited to the Met Gala for many years but has never attended. While she appreciates Vogue and Anna and her incredible imagination and stamina, it has never quite been her scene,” her representative said.
Another fashion source put the backlash in context, noting that exclusivity has always been part of the Met Gala’s design.
“The Met’s been an elitist party for as long as it’s been around,” the source said. “Anna puts a lot of pressure of herself to beat the year before, but that’s not on Lauren and Jeff.”
Odell said Wintour could sell more tickets and tables if she wanted, but has kept the event controlled. For 2026, individual tickets cost $100,000, up from $75,000 last year. Tables remain priced at $350,000, the same as in 2025.
Big Tech has entered the room
The Bezos sponsorship also fits a larger pattern. In recent years, Wintour has increasingly courted major tech players, who have been eager to buy tables and cultural proximity.
This year’s table buyers reportedly include OpenAI, Meta and Snapchat. Meta billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are also expected to attend the gala for the first time.
In her Back Row newsletter, Odell wrote that tech executives understand “there’s serious money to be made in being seen as a platform for the kind of fashion influence that, 25 years ago, couldn’t be bought and sold at the Met Gala or anywhere else. All of these businesses need female adoption.”
Her dry read on the sudden style pivot: “Could all these tech billionaires be having a midlife makeover?”
Bezos has certainly had one. Jeff Rossman, an early Amazon executive and author of The Amazon Way, said the Met Gala version of Bezos looks very different from the “slightly nerdy” founder he once knew, who wore “cheap businessman attire” such as blue button-down shirts and khakis.
Still, Rossman said Bezos had long been interested in fashion as a business.
“He was always interested in the business of fashion,” Rossman said. “Even though he didn’t personally display fashion sense, He wanted Amazon to get into the fashion business. At one point we had the concept of Amazon Black, this fashion site. He really wanted us to be able to sell apparel.”
Since his 2019 divorce from MacKenzie Scott, Bezos has become known for a more muscular, polished public image, often wearing fitted shirts and brightly colored jackets. Rossman credited the transformation, while also questioning the overall message.
“It’s inspiring how fit he has become,” Rossman said. “It’s taken decades, but he’s an example of how if you want to do something, you can.”
He added: “I get the the sense his life is much more about him and Lauren than Amazon at this point…I don’t fully understand what his personal branding is.”
Protesters are ready outside the carpet
The optics are not only being debated inside fashion. Protesters are planning to gather outside the event, and posters criticizing Bezos have already appeared around the city.
One poster reads, “The Bezos Met Gala. Brought to you by worker exploitation,” and shows what appears to be a bottle of urine on a red carpet. The image refers to claims that Amazon delivery drivers face such tight schedules that they do not have time to leave their trucks to use the bathroom.
Chris Smalls, the former president of the Amazon Labour Union, criticized the sponsorship sharply.
“It’s a bad look. It’s a no-brainer - you’re really talking about a disconnect from humanity,” Smalls said. “There are people just a few blocks away who are struggling so survive, including Bezos’ own workers. Tens of thousands of them are living off government food stamps, some without housing.”
Amazon is currently fighting a legal ruling requiring it to engage with the union.
Winston Wolkoff said she understands the financial reality of sustaining a cultural institution like the Costume Center. Her concern is what happens to the Met Gala’s identity as the money gets louder.
“I understand the realities of sustaining something like the Costume Center,” she said. “But the question becomes, how do you continue to evolve without losing the essence of what made [the Met Gala] so iconic in the first place?
“When that line starts to blur, it changes the perception of the brand as a whole.”
For now, one question remains for Monday night: what will Lauren Sánchez Bezos wear?
One fashion insider suggested that Wintour will not be waiting to find out with everyone else.
“Knowing Anna,” the insider said, “she’s going to find out what Lauren is wearing.”
