An invitation to a “candlelight” dinner held last Saturday at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club asked prospective guests to spend $ 1 million per seat. Trump attended the dinner with Elon Musk, according to several photos and videos of the event seen by Wired.
Elon Musk, who wears his standard uniform of a black sports coat over a black T-shirt, was seen shaking hands and blowing to other participants. He was with a woman with a floor -length label that Shivon Zilis appeared to be, according to Instagram roles placed by several guests. Zilis, an CEO of Neuralink who previously sat in the board of Openai, is the mother of four of Musk’s 14 well -known children. (Zilis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Musk, whose so -called effectiveness of the Department of Governments has spent the past six weeks to relocate federal agencies, sat next to Trump during dinner.
Wired previously reported on another candlelight dinner held on March 1, where guests were also invited to spend $ 1 million per person. The event appeared on the public schedule of the president with a note that reads: “The president attends the Maga Inc. Candlelight Finance dinner.” The Christmas light dinner of March 15 did not appear on the official schedule.
“You are invited to a candlelight dinner with special guest speaker Donald J. Trump,” said the invitation obtained by Wired. ‘$ 1,000,000 per person.’ The invitation has a “Maga Inc.” Head and a note at the bottom of the invitation read: “Donald J. Trump only appears on this event as a special guest speaker and does not ask for funds or donations.” Maga Inc., or Make America Great Again Inc., is a Super PAC who supported Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Wired also reported that business leaders could secure a one-on-one meeting with Trump for $ 5 million on Mar-a-Lago. The $ 5 million meetings became a ‘hot ticket’ in the business community, a source they were previously familiar with, told Wired.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the opportunity or lack of the inclusion of the event on the president’s official schedule.
Experts Wired spoke to these candlelight dinners, noted their unusual nature. “I can’t remember a sitting president in the first weeks of his administration to ask for millions of dollars to fundraising,” Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, previously told Wired. ‘The concern is less about fundraising and more about access and influence.
The candlelight dinner took place the same weekend as the Palm event, an annual celebration of motorsports in Palm Beach, Florida. One of the celebration’s weekend events took place in Mar-a-Lago on Sunday afternoon and has ‘Street sports cars and cars with a motorsport heritage, one-of-a-child, concept cars, fame control and cars with a race history,’ according to the Palm Event website. A number of these cars appeared during the candlelight the evening before, according to Instagram roles in which guests around a Rolls Royce, Bugatti and Lamborghini, including luxury vehicles displayed on the lawn.
The evening also coincided with a serious escalation in Trump’s oppression of immigration. On Saturday, while Trump and Musk ate with Maga donors, a federal judge ordered the White House to stop the deportation of people claimed according to the Trump administration, Venezuelan gang members were. Despite the verdict, two aircraft that transported the alleged gang members flew from Texas to El Salvador. According to Axios, senior officials said the decision had no power “because the flights were on international waters.”