Calif. tech giants descend on Idaho for ‘billionaire summer camp’

A pool of America’s most powerful tech, media and business moguls is descending on an Idaho mountain resort this week for what is essentially the world’s most exclusive sleepaway camp.

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Hosted by investment bank Allen & Co., the “billionaire summer camp,” as it’s known, brings some of the world’s most powerful and highly influential faces to Sun Valley. Several California tech and media executives were spotted filing in Tuesday morning, ditching jackets and ties for T-shirts and shorts and even a Canadian tuxedo. 

Though organizers don’t publicly release a guest list, Getty Images photographer Kevin Dietsch snapped several images of America’s elite, fresh off a fleet of private jets, getting settled in for a week of secretive poolside negotiations with a scenic mountainous backdrop. 

The California execs seen arriving at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference, as the event is officially known, included OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor, who sported a casual T-shirt, baseball cap and Nikes as he entered the lodge. Variety reported that he is likely to be joined by the company’s CEO Sam Altman and rival Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic. 

The AI giants’ fierce competition was the subject of a recent rant of Palantir CEO Alex Karp, who called the industry “effing insane” in a CNBC interview last week. Karp, whose company is known for controversial data collection services and multibillion dollar U.S. military contracts, was also spotted arriving at the lodge on Tuesday, flashing a peace sign to reporters. Variety, which does obtain a guest list each year, reported that other Silicon Valley moguls are expected to arrive, including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

LinkedIn Co-Founder Reid Hoffman, whose job search site recently announced a massive swath of layoffs, was seen entering the resort in a polo and khakis. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was particularly beaming as he entered and was spotted keeping the same wide grin while speaking to Wendi Murdoch, an entrepreneur and the former wife of Fox Corporation chairman emeritus Rupert Murdoch.

Among the California media contingent in attendance are Walt Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro and his predecessor Bob Iger. The pair were all smiles while taking a stroll in the Idaho sun with Disney President Dana Walden’s husband, Matt Walden, a business executive based in New York. They’ll surely come face-to-face with fellow California-based competitor David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, who waved to photographers while sporting denim on denim. Variety reported that they’re to be joined later by Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison along with current Apple CEO Tim Cook and incoming CEO John Ternus. 

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The weeklong event often features big-name anchors and reporters moderating discussions through the event, which this year includes Anderson Cooper, Bret Baier and David Ignatius. But the real stakes are likely found in talks not posted on an event schedule. Business Insider reported in 2017 that the Sun Valley Lodge’s walls have long been privy to massive merger negotiations, including Disney and ABC, Comcast and NBC Universal, and AOL and Verizon. 

While it remains to be seen what may come out of this year’s billionaire fete, artificial intelligence will likely be the hottest topic. Media and business leaders are increasingly scrambling to integrate the tech into their companies’ workflows, all while the AI giants that offer the products fight each other for these lofty contracts. As the AI race continues, fears over a dot-com-level bubble burst loom as OpenAI and Anthropic prepare to go public later this year. 

Work at Sun Valley Lodge or anyone in attendance and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Matthew Brown securely at [email protected] or on Signal at matthewbrownsfgate.11.