Mark Zuckerberg slides in to Sun Valley in shorts and $35 flip flops a day after Trump…

Jeff Bezos and his girlfriend Lauren Sanchez were spotted on Thursday arrving at the annual Sun Valley conference in Idaho, dubbed the ‘billionaire summer camp’.

Bezos, 57, was spotted at the relaxed gathering of titans from industry, media, sport and technology dressed down in a polo shirt and light blue pants, with white sneakers.

Sanchez, 51, looked summery in a flowing skirt and a sun hat, in a video captured on Thursday by FOX Business Network. The two were spotted walking hand-in-hand with smiles on their faces.

Reporters shouted questions at Bezos about his impending trip to space, but the Amazon founder did not answer, and carried on walking into the venue.

Bezos has announced that he will become the first passenger to fly into space with his space tourism company, Blue Origin, on July 20.  

Bezos, a lifelong space enthusiast, has been racing against fellow billionaires Richard Branson and Elon Musk to be the first of the three to travel beyond Earth’s atmosphere. 

The billionaire space race is fueled by optimism that space travel will become mainstream as nascent technology is proven and costs fall, fueling what UBS estimates could be a $3 billion annual tourism market by 2030. 

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, as well as Musk’s SpaceX, have also discussed using their rockets to link far-flung global cities.  

Blue Origin named the New Shepard program after astronaut Alan Shepard, who was the first American to fly into space exactly 60 years ago.

A mystery bidder has paid $28million at auction for a seat onboard the first crewed spaceflight by Blue Origin. 

The person will fly on July 20 with Bezos and his brother Mark. 

Bezos and Sanchez, who began dating in 2019, attended that year’s Sun Valley conference together.

The meeting has been useful for Bezos: it is reportedly where, in 2013, he sealed his deal to buy The Washington Post. 

Bezos, already the world’s wealthiest man, has set a new record for personal net worth by topping $211 billion.

Bezos, 57, gained $8.4 billion in net worth on Tuesday alone, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as Amazon stock soared 4.7 per cent on the Pentagon’s announcement that it is canceling the $10 billion JEDI contract with Microsoft.

It vaulted Bezos above the previous record of $210 billion, held briefly in January by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has seen his fortunes decline and now holds a mere $181 billion, putting him in distance second after Bezos.

While Tesla stock has declined nearly 10 percent so far this year, Amazon shares have continued to soar, adding 15.4 percent since January 1.

Amazon’s soaring shares have boosted the fortunes of Bezos, who on Monday stepped down as chief executive of Amazon, handing over the reins to his experienced lieutenant Andy Jassy. 

Bezos now takes over the role of executive chairman at Amazon. He still owns about 51 million shares of Amazon stock, a position that makes up the vast majority of his wealth. 

Philanthropist Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Walt Disney Company chair Bob Iger and fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg also made their appearances on the third day of the annual ‘billionaire summer camp’ in the resort town of Sun Valley, Idaho on Thursday.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, cut a casual figure as he conferred with Facebook COO Sandberg.

The two were photographed on the same day that a bombshell New York Times report claimed that their relationship has been strained due to disagreements that arose during Donald Trump‘s presidency.

According to the Times, Zuckerberg usurped some of Sandberg’s duties as she lost influence in Washington, DC after Trump’s shock victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election.

Sandberg, who is active in Democratic Party politics and fundraising, saw her influence within the company diminish as Facebook felt pressure to prove to conservatives that it did not have a liberal bias, according to the Times. 

Amazon’s soaring shares have boosted the fortunes of Bezos, who on Monday stepped down as chief executive of Amazon, handing over the reins to his experienced lieutenant Andy Jassy.

Gates, who announced in May that he is divorcing his wife of 27 years, Melinda French Gates, was seen at the Sun Valley conference with Evan Greenberg, the president and CEO of global insurance giant Chubb Limited.

The tech executives did not appear all too concerned on Thursday just a day after former President Trump announced a class action lawsuit against the social network and other platforms including Twitter and YouTube, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet.

Trump revealed the action against Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube, along with the companies’ Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai, at a press conference Wednesday in New Jersey, where he demanded that his accounts be reinstated.

Trump has been suspended from the platforms since January, when his followers violently stormed the Capitol building, trying to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential win.

The companies cited concerns that Trump would incite further violence and have kept him locked out.

All three declined comment on Wednesday.

‘We’re asking the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida to order an immediate halt to social media companies’ illegal, shameful censorship of the American people,’ Trump said of the filings.

‘We’re going to hold big tech very accountable.’

Twitter, Facebook and Google are all private companies, and users must agree to their terms of service to use their products.

Under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, social media platforms are allowed to moderate their services by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services’ own standards, so long as they are acting in ‘good faith.’

The law also generally exempts internet companies from liability for the material that users post.

Zuckerberg and Sandberg were seen greeting fellow millionaires and billionaires including New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, 80, and his girlfriend, New York City doctor Dana Blumberg.

On Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Warren Buffett, Diane Von Furstenberg and husband Barry Diller were among those spotted arriving for day two of the conference, where the estimated wealth of attendees surpasses $700 billion, the equivalent of the GDP of Saudi Arabia.

Big names and moguls in tech, business, film and media have been descending on Sun Valley, a tiny resort town in rural Idaho, for the annual five-day conference put on by Allen & Company.

Buffett, the 90-year-old CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, was spotted on Wednesday being escorted to the conference in a golf cart. 

Belgian fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg, 74, and her IAC chairman husband Barry Diller, 79, strolled in together for one of the conference’s morning sessions.

Diller was pictured on Thursday alongside CNN host Anderson Cooper, who is a close family friend of Von Furstenberg. The fashion designer was a well known friend of Cooper’s late mother, socialite Gloria Vanderbilt. 

Others who were spotted arriving for the day two events included Snap Inc.’s Evan Spiegel, Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife Wendi Deng, ViacomCBS Chair Shari Redstone, and Alice and Olivia CEO Stacey Bendet.

Bendet cut a striking figure on Thursday in her brightly-colored ensemble, and Nike platform sneakers.

Felicia Horowitz, wife of technology entrepreneur Ben Hortowitz and criminal justice reform advocate Alice Marie Johnson also arrived at the resort Tuesday.

Famous faces included actress Candice Bergen, TV host Gayle King, and journalists Anderson Cooper and Andrew Ross Sorkin. 

Facebook Vice President of Partnerships Dan Rose was also seen arriving at the Sun Valley conference, which brings together many of the world’s richest and most powerful figures.

Politicians were represented by former CIA Director David Petraeus, and former White House Office of National Drug Control Policy advisor Kevin Sabet.

Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, was also present.

Washington lobbyist Mike Berman of the Duberstein Group (left) and Chris McKown, executive chairman of Iora Health also appeared at the Idaho event.

In media, famous faces included film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg and WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar. Netflix Co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos also rolled up at Sun Valley.

Former Washington Post Publisher Donald Graham with his wife and journalist Amanda Bennett arrived at the invite-only conference.

The CEO of Liberty Media and chairman of Live Nation Entertainment Greg Maffei was seen talking to Brian Kelly, chairman of Activision Blizzard Inc.

Imagine Entertainment producer Brian Grazer arrived with his wife, and marketing executive Veronica Smiley.

David Zaslav, CEO of Discovery Communications spoke to reporters outside the Sun Valley conference on Tuesday, and NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell arrived to start off the five-day conference as well.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek and Comcast CFO Mike Cavanagh and CEO Brian Roberts were more top media giants who showed up on Tuesday for the first day of the networking event.

Canadian actor Justin Kelly was also there. 

In industry and finance, Evan Greenberg, the president and CEO of global insurance giant Chubb Limited, was seen, as well as Jim Robinson, RRE Ventures managing partner.

Italian industrialist John Elkann; Barry Diller, chairman and senior executive ofIAC/InterActiveCorp and Expedia Group; and Google Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler were seen laughing and chatting.

Ken Langone, an American billionaire businessman, investor and philanthropist, and Jeff Bewkes, former CEO of Time Warner, arrived at the conference on Thursday.

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg was spotted returning from a run at the annual conference.

Former AOL CEO Tim Armstrong also arrived Tuesday.

Max Levchin, co-founder of Paypal was among a number of tech moguls in attendance.

Anne-Cecilie Engell Speyer, co-created the Never Stop Learning platform, was seen at the resort, as were CEO of Venezuelan firm Empresas Polar, Lorenzo Mendoza, and the chairman of Capital Research and Management Company, Carl Kawaja.

Co-founder of cybersecurity firm Tanium, Orion Hindawi, and his wife Jackie Hindawi were there, as were founder and managing partner of Bridger Management, Roberto Mignone with his wife Allison Mignone, and Stephanie Coleman.

Sherine Sawiris, the wife of Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris, was seen on Thursday in Idaho, as was Ariella Moskovitz, wife of D.M. Operations Management Inc. President Dan Moskovitz.

Alex von Furstenberg, Chief Investment Officer at Ranger Global Advisors, attended with his wife Ali Kay.

From the world of sport came Nike co-founder Phil Knight, Nike CEO John Donahoe, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.

The chairman of Augusta National Golf Club Fred Ridley was also at the event.

Adriana Cisneros, CEO of Grupo Cisneros, arrived with her husband Nick Griffin on Tuesday.

Anthony Noto, CEO of SoFi, a personal finance company, was spotted, as were Marne Levine, chief business officer at Facebook and Bret Taylor, COO of Salesforce.

CEO of Aurora Chris Urmson was present, as were Twitter CFO Ned Segal and real estate developer Rob Speyer.

Michael Ovitz, an American businessman and former talent agent, and the chariman and CEO of Rakuten, Mickey Mikitani, were in attendance, as was the CEO of Mattel, Ynon Kreiz – seen hugging NBC CEO Jeff Shell.

Survey Monkey CEO Zander Lurie and Dr. Frank Petito, a neurology specialist with Weill Cornell Medicine, were among the dozens of elites from across a multitude of industries to descend on the lodge in Idaho Tuesday

The CEO of Centene Corporation, Michael Neidorff, was also spotted at the event, which is thrown by investment bank Allen & Company.

Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund, was there, as was investment banker Dan Luftkin and Alex Sacerdote of Whale Rock Capital Management.

He was spotted with former chairman and president of Duquesne Capital Stan Druckenmiller.

Frank Slootman CEO of Snowflake (left) and Eric Lefkofsky, founder of Tempus and co-founder of Groupon were also in attendance as part of the conference’s cadre of tech moguls

Will Danoff, vice president of Fidelity Contrafund, was spotted, as was Bill Koenigsberg, president and CEO of Horizon Media Inc.

Henry Kravis, co-founder of KKR & Co. Inc., an investment company, made the trek to Sun Valley, as did Josh Witz principal of J3 Real Estate Advisors are among the of players in a wide variety of industries invited to the conference

Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow, arrived on Tuesday for the annual conference, as did Ray Snead and investment banker Dan Pozen. 

An estimate based on the latest available figures puts the total wealth of those known to be in attendance and those rumored to be attending at $588 billion. 

The estimated net worth of those already in attendance is about $340 billion. 

Other influential names on the guest list are Bezos’ successor Andy Jassy, who is set to take over the reins at Amazon.

Reclaim The Net web site also reported that WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar is among the invitees from the world of media, along with Diane Sawyer, Cooper and Van Jones and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. 

Former US Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao and Council of Foreign Relations President Richard Haass are among the public officials on the invite list, Reclaim The Net reported.

Those attending investment bank Allen & Co.’s annual conference will need to have been vaccinated and show proof of a negative Covid-19 test. 

Over the holiday weekend, private jets belonging to business leaders began arriving at the local airport and taking up space on the tarmac at Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey as they parked up for the week.

From there, guests were chauffeured through 15 miles of lush rolling hills to the lodge where the conference takes place.  

Rival chief executives including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos along with his successor Andy Jassy, Comcast Corp.’s Brian Roberts are all said to be on the guest list.

Already Discovery’s David Zaslav teased some potential business deals, saying that more might follow after the announcement in May of Discovery’s $43billion merger deal with AT&T’s entertainment arm, WarnerMedia.

‘We’re not done yet,’ he told the New York Post as he entered the conference, saying he’ll continue to search for more viable mergers once the deal is closed in eight months.  

‘There’s a lot of assets out there that have good IP that will probably get new homes,’ he said.  

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley are also expected to attend.

Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp, is also among the invitees, as is Fox Corp. Chief Operating Officer John Nallen. 

They will have a lot to discuss given the massive shift to streaming during the pandemic and consumers moving to Netflix and Disney+ over the last 16 months and cutting the cord from traditional pay-TV subscriptions.

In May, AT&T said it was spinning off WarnerMedia which is made up from HBO, the Warner Bros. film and TV studio along with the cable networks of TNT and TBS into a new venture being formed with Discovery.

The following week Amazon announced its intention to acquire MGM studios. 

Such consolidation within the media industry has reduced the number of potential targets available, but fresh deals are not off the table. 

The real action for many onlookers will happen in corridors, restaurants and golf courses rather than conference rooms. 

‘It would be wise for these companies to collaborate and rethink the ecosystem, and figure out their future,’ said analyst Neil Begley to the Wall Street Journal. ‘There are still a few players out there that can be easily absorbed.’

Analysts believe the WarnerMedia and Discovery merger could be the first of many deals which are made as the traditional media companies look to compete better in streaming by bulking up on content. 

Previous deals that have their roots at Sun Valley include the 1995 purchase of Capital Cities/ABC by Disney, Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2009, the purchase of AOL by Verizon in 2015, and Jeff Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post in 2013. 

Attendees at the last conference in 2019 included Facebook bosses Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg;  Disney’s Bob Iger; 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki; Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan Murdoch, who is the CEO of Fox Corporation; PayPal CEO Dan Schulman; Instagram COO Marne Levine; McDonald’s chief Steve Easterbrook and billionaire media executive Shari Redstone. 

The conference began in 1982, and in its early days founder Herbert Allen – who co-founded Allen & Company with brother Charles – had to beg invitees to come.