An invitation to a “candlelit” dinner held last Saturday at the Mar-A-Lago club of President Donald Trump asked potential guests to spend $ 1 million per seat. Trump attended dinner with Elon Musk, according to several photographs and videos of the event seen by Wired.
Elon Musk, carrying his standard uniform of a black sports coat on a black t-shirt, was seen shaking hands and agitating the other participants. He was with a woman wearing a floor length dress who seemed to be Shivon Zilis, according to Instagram Reels published by several guests. Zilis, a neuralink leader who was previously seated on the board of directors of Openai, is the mother of four of the 14 known children of Musk. (Zilis did not immediately respond to a request for comments.)
Musk, whose so-called Ministry of Government Effectiveness has spent the last six weeks ransacking federal agencies, sat next to Trump during dinner.
Wired previously reported another candlelit dinner on March 1 that guests were also invited to spend $ 1 million per person. This event appeared on the President’s public schedule With a note reading “The president attended the candlelit financing dinner Maga inc.”. The candlelit dinner on March 15 did not appear in the official calendar.
“You are invited to a candlelit dinner featuring the special president of the guest president Donald J. Trump,” said the invitation, obtained by Wired. “$ 1,000,000 per person.” The invitation has a “maga inc”. Header and a note at the bottom of the invitation can be read as follows: “Donald J. Trump appears at this event only as a special guest lecturer and does not ask for funds or donations.” Maga Inc., or Make America Great Again Inc., is a Super CAP that supported the presidential campaign in 2024 of Trump.
Wired also indicated that business leaders could provide a head-to-head meeting with Trump for $ 5 million at Mar-A-Lago. The $ 5 million meetings have become a “hot ticket” in the business community, said a source that knew them previously.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments on the event or the absence of the inclusion of the event on the president’s official calendar.
The wired experts talked about these candlelit dinners noted concerns about their unusual nature. “I do not remember an in -office in the first weeks of his administration to ask for millions of dollars in fundraising,” said Don Moynihan, professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “The concern is less concerned with fundraising and more on access and influence. People hoping to obtain favorable treatment see it in their interest to give money to Trump. »»
The candlelight dinner occurred during the same weekend as The Palm Event, an annual celebration of car sports in Palm Beach, Florida. One of the events of the celebration weekend took place in Mar-A-Lago on Sunday afternoon and presented “Street Sportscars and Cars with a Motorsports Heritage, unique in its kind, concept cars, celebrities and cars with a race story”, according to the Palm event website. A number of these cars appeared the day before the candlelit dinner, according to Instagram Reels who presented guests who were deposited around a Rolls Royce, Bugatti and Lamborghini, among other luxury vehicles displayed on the lawn.
The evening also coincided with a serious escalation in Trump’s repression against immigration. On Saturday, when Trump and Musk died with donors Maga, a federal judge ordered the White House To stop the expulsion of the people that the Trump administration alleged were members of Venezuelan gang. Despite this decision, two planes bearing the alleged gang members stole from Texas to El Salvador. Senior officials would have Tell Axios That the decision had no force “because thefts were on international waters”.
