Met Gala hits record $42 million haul as Bezos sponsorship draws protests

The 2026 Met Gala raised a record $42 million for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, fueled in part by Silicon Valley sponsors and individual tickets that climbed to $100,000. The haul, up from $31 million in 2025, came as public backlash targeted lead sponsor Jeff Bezos and a coalition of workers and activists staged competing protests in New York.

The Details

The annual fundraising gala brought in $42 million for the Costume Institute, a sharp increase from the $31 million reportedly raised in 2025, according to Fortune. The Costume Institute is the museum's only department required to be fully self-funded, making the gala's proceeds central to its operations.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos served as lead sponsors and honorary co-chairs of the 2026 event. Their involvement triggered calls for boycotts and public criticism in the weeks leading up to the gala, according to Business Insider, Le Monde, and Town & Country. Bezos did not appear on the Monday red carpet, Business Insider reported, while Lauren Sánchez Bezos attended publicly.

Fortune reported that Amazon, Meta, OpenAI, Snapchat, and Shopify purchased tables priced at $350,000 each, while individual tickets reached $100,000, up from roughly $75,000 in 2025. Town & Country also noted ticket prices at $100,000 with tables starting at $350,000.

Fortune reported that Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos contributed a reported $10 million to the event, though that figure was not independently confirmed across the corroborating sources reviewed for this article.

Context

The 2026 gala's theme was "Fashion is Art" and it supported the Costume Institute exhibition "Costume Art," according to Le Monde and Fortune.

Ahead of the event, social sentiment surrounding the gala and the Bezoses skewed heavily negative. Business Insider cited data from PeakMetrics indicating that social posts on the topic ran roughly 70 percent unfavorable and 6 percent favorable in the month leading up to the event.

Protesters organized a counter-event called the Ball Without Billionaires and staged anti-Bezos actions in New York around the gala, Fortune and Business Insider reported. In one action, a protest video was projected onto Bezos' penthouse featuring a 72-year-old Amazon worker identified as Mary, who said: "When we struggle from paycheck to paycheck, from week to week, it really angers me, because if it weren't for every associate in every Amazon facility, he wouldn't have all those zeros behind his name. Enjoy your damn gala."

Event chair Anna Wintour defended the couple's support, telling Le Monde by way of AFP: "They genuinely, genuinely care about giving back." Met museum director Max Hollein, quoted by Town & Country from CNN reporting, also addressed the criticism, saying: "But we will always be grateful for that support from various different sources."

What's Next

The record $42 million fundraising total provides substantial backing for the Costume Institute's self-funded operations and its current "Costume Art" exhibition. The public backlash surrounding Bezos' co-chair role and the competing Ball Without Billionaires protests highlight ongoing tensions between the gala's high-dollar sponsorship model and its reception among portions of the public and worker communities.