Allen & Co. frames Sun Valley as an apolitical gathering of industry leaders focused on 'thought leadership' and fostering dialogue about the future of media, technology, and global business—pure networking, nothing to see here.
Sources tell Celebrity Bytes that multiple invitations caused internal debates among organizers. Bill Gates and Casey Wasserman's Epstein ties remain radioactive in Hollywood circles, while Bari Weiss's inclusion as 'Ellison's CBS News problem child' signals the new Paramount-Skydard regime is picking fights with legacy newsroom culture.
Variety obtained the official guest list on June 9, 2026. Bill Gates and Casey Wasserman are both explicitly noted in the source as 'embattled by ties to Jeffrey Epstein.' Bari Weiss's entry lists her title as 'Ellison's CBS News problem child'—a phrase Variety itself used in print.
Sun Valley has always been where deals get hatched over canapés and hiking trips—but this year's guest list is less 'leadership retreat' and more 'who left them off the island.' With Epstein-adjacent moguls rubbing shoulders with Kushners while Zaslav and Ellison share trails, July in Idaho just got a lot more interesting.
The annual Allen & Co. leadership retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho—lovingly dubbed "billionaire summer camp" by those too polite to call it what it really is—has dropped its 2026 guest list, and Variety has obtained the document exclusively. This year's lineup reads like a who's who of media manipulation, tech bro excess, and exactly the kind of people you'd cross the street to avoid if you weren't desperate for a merger deal.
Let's start with the elephant in the room: Bill Gates and Casey Wasserman are both on the list despite being publicly "embattled by ties to Jeffrey Epstein." Gates is listed as representing his eponymous foundation, while Wasserman appears in his capacity as Olympics chair for LA28—his own agency rebranded as The Team and currently seeking new ownership after the Hollywood scion's Epstein fallout made him radioactive to half of Tinseltown.
You can't make this stuff up. Allen & Co. apparently believes that a puffer vest and some mountain air washes away all sins. In Hollywood, apparently, it does.
Then there's Bari Weiss—officially listed in Variety's reporting as "Ellison's CBS News problem child." That's not gossip, that's the actual framing from the trade publication covering this story. The newly installed Paramount-Skydance chairman has made no secret of his intentions to reshape CBS News under his vision, and Weiss—who previously burned through The New York Times before finding refuge at The Free Press—is his chosen instrument. Expect plenty of trust falls with mainstream media critics when she hits those Idaho trails.
The real theater, however, will be watching David Ellison navigate a retreat where David Zaslav is also in attendance. Why does that matter? Because Ellison's Skydance has been trying to buy Warner Bros.
Discovery—the company Zaslav runs—for months now. Nothing says 'corporate diplomacy' quite like hiking beside the man whose boardroom you're actively trying to dissolve while smiling for photos by the Hemingway memorial. Also notably absent: Warren Buffett, John Malone, and Shari Redstone—all Sun Valley regulars who've been left off this year's list.
Redstone's exclusion is particularly spicy given she just sold Paramount to Ellison himself; apparently even winning a bidding war doesn't guarantee you an invite to billionaire summer camp. The press will be watching closely to see who lingers at the picnic tables and who disappears into the Idaho wilderness for 'private conversations.' Because in Sun Valley, that's how deals get done—or destroyed—before anyone ever signs a piece of paper.
