Inside The Annual Summer Camp For Billionaires In Sun Valley, Idaho

The beautiful mountain resort town of Sun Valley, Idaho, will again be overwhelmed with private jets, bodyguards, and entourages, as the world’s wealthiest attend the 40th annual media finance conference hosted and funded by private investment firm Allen & Company. Residents of Sun Valley are used to all of the excitement and welcome the influx of money it provides to the area.

The annual mogul event takes place July 12-14 at the historic Sun Valley Lodge. Along with 108 newly renovated guest rooms, a spa, a fitness center, a yoga studio, and updated restaurants, lobbies, and lounges, there are also five suites honoring celebrities who spent time vacationing there, including Marilyn Monroe, Ernest Hemingway, and Clint Eastwood.

The coveted invites to the gathering go out to the top 1% of CEOs, their families, investors, and brilliant scientific minds. Most guests arrive by private jets, (which resulted in a ground stop issued by the FAA last year due to extreme congestion.) For five days, the famous moguls all wear name badges like us common folk, listen to speeches, sit in on panels about politics, healthcare, and the economy, and join in on group activities from golf to fly-fishing, hiking, and cycling.

According to the entertainment industry stalwart Variety, the invites went out to an impressive list. Though an invite does not guarantee attendance, most would not pass up the opportunity. Among the bold-faced names expected are:

• Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg
• Warner Bros. Discovery honcho David Zaslav
• Paramount Global chair Shari Redstone
• Google CEO Sundar Pichai
• Apple head Tim Cook
• Microsoft founder Bill Gates
• Disney’s Bob Iger

Also invited are Lawrence Summers, Hank Paulson, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, former CIA chief David Petraeus, Warren Buffett, former American Express chief Kenneth Chenault, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Annox Capital’s Bob Myeloid, and Facebook investor Peter Thiel.

Media headliners include New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, CBS hosts Gayle King and David Begnaud, CNN’s Van Jones and Erin Burnett, The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, The Free Press’ Bari Weiss, and possibly Oprah Winfrey.

Studio execs include Netflix head Reed Hastings, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, Casey Wasserman, Bobby Kotick, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. They will likely join industry vets CAA head Bryan Lourd, producer Brian Grazer, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Disney chairman Dana Walden. However, don’t expect to see Elon Musk or the Murdoch’s attend this year.

Some of the most powerful sports figures have been invited, including MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula.

This year’s Panel themes are top secret but will likely include international policymakers like Amos Yadlin, head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, and Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States. Artificial intelligence will likely be a much-discussed topic at this year’s retreat, with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, speaking.

And for wealthy visitors wanting to keep a year-round home, numerous famous names have estates in the surrounding area and the Warm Springs area for winter activities. The Edelweiss condominiums have historically been the must-have accessory used by “wealthy celebrities and business titans,” according to the New York Times. They are conveniently located across the street from the base of the ski mountain. Some well-known individuals have been known to use the condo to store their ski equipment during the winter.

For those wishing something more extravagant, you can snatch up a $27 million estate in nearby Ketchum, Idaho, and you may end up as neighbors with longtime celebrity residents Tom Hanks, Demi Moore, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.