Lauren Sanchez, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Anna Wintour attends the Tom Ford AW20 Show at Milk Studios on February 07, 2020 in Hollywood, California.

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The messages besmirching the wealthiest billionaire in the country began appearing in April across New York. Well, underneath it — as subway advertisements, covertly placed behind the plastic of those square commuter distractions, pitching continuing education or more youthful skin. And while the messenger behind these ads urging a boycott of the 2026 Met Gala may have felt unclear, their message was unmistakable: Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of Amazon and various other companies that touch the lives of millions of Americans, is no good.

“The Bezos Met Gala: Brought to You by the Company that Powers ICE,” one of the guerrilla ads reads, alluding, dead-eyed, to the 62-year-old’s company’s contract providing cloud computing to Immigration and Customs Enforcement — which, under the Trump administration, has brought detentions up by over 75 percent in one year — or perhaps to Bezos’ cozy affiliation with the president. “The only minority destroying this nation is the super rich,” another ad explains.

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Amazon may be providing cloud computing to ICE, and Bezos may have attended Trump’s second inauguration. But why would this lefty underground ad campaign target him now? Somehow, the once innocuous and nerdish CEO’s involvement — read: throwing cash at — this year’s beloved Met Gala is chapping a lot of asses, with protests popping up and New York’s newly young mayor ducking out of the event. Could his media blitz with new wife, ex-journalist Lauren Sanchez-Bezos, have backfired, as they’ve become one of the media’s more heavily photographed couples? Too many tone-deaf photo shoots from the happy pair, who essentially rented out the city of Venice for their star-studded summer 2025 wedding; the gutting of the Washington Post as soon as the second Trump administration settled in — the list goes on. This year seems to have us hating Bezos. The nation’s onetime avatar of wild success (he started in his basement!) may just be our next pariah.

The subway campaign, it turns out, came after Bezos and Sanchez-Bezos bought their way onto the dais at the Met Gala, according to Page Six, to the tune of $10 million. This was certainly to the delight of Anna Wintour, the former Vogue editor-in-chief (and current chief content officer of Condé Nast and global editorial director of Vogue), who, for years, has side-hustled as steward of the Met Gala and the museum’s costume collection. She has yet to provide a convincing answer when asked why Bezos and his wife are joining her and co-chairs Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams — and host committee members like Zoë Kravitz and Yves Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello.

The couple was expected to join Wintour atop the museum steps, greeting arriving guests; Sanchez-Bezos walked the carpet Monday night without Bezos. The optics of these two standing above all attendees — some of the most creative and talented designers in the world — strikes many as a perversion of what the Met Gala is meant to represent: an event born out of creative power, imagination and raw talent. With extreme wealth so easily penetrating this world, a protest movement has emerged.

“We think it should become embarrassing to be a millionaire. We don’t think it should be culturally acceptable,” a spokesperson for Everyone Hates Elon, the global but U.K.-based guerrilla group behind the subway ads, told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday, lamenting the close ties apparent in the billionaire class and with President Trump. “It’s these oligarchs that are basically propping up Trump, that make everything he does possible. Really, he’s able to act with impunity because he’s supported by other powerful people.”

The direct action group kept up its work over the weekend, when it concocted a protest statement against the bathroom break policy imposed upon Amazon drivers — around 300 bottles of fake urine were found, placed by members inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And last night, a series of messages condemning Bezos and his flagship company lit up the billionaire’s Madison Squ

How Protests Clawed Back Jeff Bezos' Met Gala 2026 Involvement