Workers In New York Held Their Own "Ball Without Billionaires" To Protest Jeff Bezos Sponsoring The Met Gala
On May 1, days before the gala, members from the activist group “Everyone Hates Elon” placed about 300 bottles of fake urine inside the Met Museum in protest.
The Met Gala, fashion's most famous annual party, was met with the biggest protest campaign in years after it named Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and one of the richest people in the world, and his wife Lauren Sánchez Bezos as honorary chairs and lead sponsors of the event.
The gala has always attracted criticism for being a spectacle of wealth at a time when most people cannot afford basic necessities, as one in four New York City residents live in poverty, according to the New York Times.
This year, the Met Gala named the Bezos as honorary chairs and lead sponsors, contributing about US$10 million.
Amazon has faced years of criticism over its treatment of warehouse workers, including allegations that workers were forced to urinate in bottles on the job due to limited bathroom breaks.
The company is currently being sued in multiple countries over warehouse working conditions.
Bezos has also been criticized for backing and donating to US president Donald Trump's second inauguration in January 2025.
The company also has contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and is also part of Project Nimbus, a contract between Google and Amazon to provide cloud and computing services to Israel, which has been used by Israel in its genocide in Gaza.
On May 1, days before the gala, members from the activist group “Everyone Hates Elon” placed about 300 bottles of fake urine inside the Met Museum in protest.
On the eve of the gala, the group projected video interviews with Amazon workers onto the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and the Bezos' penthouse near Madison Square Park, with one message reading: "If You Can Buy the Met Gala, You Can Pay More Taxes."
At the same time, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents more than two million members across the US and is one of the country's largest labor unions, staged what it called a "Ball Without Billionaires" in the Meatpacking District.
SEIU created a runway bringing together workers from Amazon, Whole Foods, The Washington Post, Starbucks and Uber, who walked the runway in looks created by immigrant designers.
"Culture does not come from boardrooms," SEIU’s president said as she opened the event. "It comes from the working-class meatpackers who gave this place its name. It comes from the hands that stitch the garments. It comes from the workers who move the packages."
She closed the show saying four words, "Labor is art," a nod to the Gala’s 2026 theme of Fashion is Art.
Several celebrities skipped the Met Gala, including New York City's newly elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani, saying he would not attend the gala due to affordability.
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