Activists flood New York with anti-Bezos posters ahead of Met Gala

Activists plastered Manhattan and Brooklyn with posters attacking Jeff Bezos’ role in the Metropolitan Museum’s spring fundraising machine, turning the run-up to the Met Gala into a public argument over who bankrolls elite culture and what that money represents.

The campaign targeted the 2026 gala, set for Monday, May 4, with Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos named as honorary chairs and lead donors. Posters appeared near the Met and in Midtown, with some reading, “Boycott the Bezos Met Gala,” and “Bezos Met Gala: Brought to you by the firm that powers ICE.” The messaging pushed the dispute beyond one event and into broader criticism of billionaire influence over institutions that rely on wealthy patrons.

The Metropolitan Museum has said the Costume Institute Benefit is the department’s primary source of funding for annual exhibitions, publications, acquisitions and operations. That funding model places extraordinary weight on a single night of fundraising, and this year’s gala sits directly in the center of that system. The Costume Institute’s spring exhibition, Costume Art, opens May 10 and runs through January 10, 2027, in the museum’s nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries.

The activists’ critique focused on several familiar fault lines. They pointed to Amazon’s labor practices, Bezos’ ties to the Trump administration and allegations that Amazon technology is used by, or supports, ICE. The posters were the clearest public-facing statement of the protest so far, suggesting a campaign built less on formal organizing inside the museum world than on visible disruption in the city’s most watched neighborhoods.

Bezos and Sánchez first attended the Met Gala together in 2024. They skipped the 2025 event because of their Venice wedding, but they returned to the center of the conversation this year as the museum placed them in the ceremonial spotlight for a gala built around the theme “Fashion is Art.” The backlash underscored a sharper tension beneath the black-tie spectacle: for critics, the issue is not just one donor couple, but whether cultural institutions can keep asking the public to celebrate philanthropy while shielding the power that comes with it.