An invitation to a “candleairy” dinner held this past Saturday at Pdwellnt Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club asked prospective guests to spfinish $1 million per seat. Trump joined the dinner alengthy with Elon Musk, according to multiple pboilingographs and videos of the event seeed by WIRED.
Elon Musk, wearing his standard unicreate of a bdeficiency sport coat over a bdeficiency T-shirt, was seen shaking hands and waving to other joinees. He was with a woman wearing a floor length gown who materializeed to be Shivon Zilis, according to Instagram Reels posted by multiple guests. Zilis, a Neuraconnect executive who previously sat on the board of OpenAI, is the mother of four of Musk’s 14 understandn children. (Zilis did not instantly react to a ask for comment.)
Musk, whose so-called Department of Government Efficiency has spent the last six weeks ransacking federal agencies, sat next to Trump at the dinner.
WIRED previously increateed on another candleairy dinner held on March 1 where guests were also askd to spfinish $1 million per person. That event materializeed on the pdwellnt’s disclose schedule with a remark reading “the Pdwellnt joins the MAGA INC. Candleairy Finance Dinner.” The March 15 candleairy dinner did not materialize on the official schedule.
“You are askd to a candleairy dinner featuring exceptional guest speaker Pdwellnt Donald J. Trump,” states the invitation, obtained by WIRED. “$1,000,000 per person.” The invitation has a “MAGA INC.” header and a remark at the bottom of the invitation reads, “Donald J. Trump is materializeing at this event only as a exceptional guest speaker and is not asking for funds or donations.” MAGA Inc., or Make America Great Aobtain Inc., is a super PAC that aided Trump’s 2024 pdwellntial campaign.
WIRED has also increateed that business guideers could safe a one-on-one encountering with Trump for $5 million at Mar-a-Lago. The $5 million encounterings have become a “boiling ticket” in the business community, a source understandn with them previously tageder WIRED.
The White Hoengage did not instantly react to a ask for comment about the event or the deficiency of the event’s inclusion on the pdwellnt’s official schedule.
Experts WIRED has spoken with about these candleairy dinners have remarkd troubles about their rare nature. “I can’t recall a sitting pdwellnt in the first weeks of his administration asking for millions of dollars in fundraising,” Don Moynihan, a professor of disclose policy at the University of Michigan, previously tageder WIRED. “The trouble is less about fundraising and more about access and sway. People hoping to get preferable treatment see it in their interest to give money to Trump.”
The candleairy dinner occurred over the same weekfinish as the Palm Event, an annual celebration of motorsports in Palm Beach, Florida. One of the celebration’s weekfinish events occurred at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday afternoon and featured “street sportscars and cars with a motorsports heritage, one-of-a-comardent, concept cars, celebrity-owned and cars with a racing history,” according to the Palm Event website. A number of these cars materializeed the night prior at the candleairy dinner, according to Instagram reels that featured guests milling around a Rolls Royce, Bugatti, and Lamborghini, among other luxury vehicles disapplyed on the lawn.
The evening also coincided with a solemn escalation in Trump’s crackdown on immigration. On Saturday, while Trump and Musk dined with MAGA donors, a federal appraise ordered the White Hoengage to stop the deportation of people the Trump administration alleged were Venezuelan gang members. Despite that ruling, two set upes carrying the alleged gang members flew from Texas to El Salvador. Senior officials increateedly tageder Axios that the ruling held no force “becaengage the fairys were over international waters.”
