An invitation to a “candlelight” dinner held last Saturday at President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago club, asking potential guests to spend $1 million each. According to multiple photos and videos viewed by Wired, Trump attended the dinner with Elon Musk.
Elon Musk shook hands and waved to other attendees in a standard uniform with a black sports jacket on a black T-shirt. He is with a woman in a long floor dress, according to Instagram reel posted by several guests. Zilis is a neurological director who previously sat on the Openai board and is the mother of four of Musk’s 14 known children. (Zilis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Musk’s so-called government efficiency department has sacked federal agencies over the past six weeks, and he sat next to Trump at a dinner party.
Wired previously reported on another candlelight dinner on March 1, and invited guests to spend $1 million each. The event appeared on the president’s public agenda, which read “The president attends Mecca’s company for the candlelight financial dinner.” The candlelight dinner for March 15 did not appear on the official schedule.
“You are invited to the candlelight dinner, which includes special guest chairman Donald J. Trump,” Wade received the invitation. “$1,000,000 per person.” Invitation has a “Maga Inc.” The invitation title and note read: “Donald J. Trump only appeared at the event as a special guest speaker, not asking for funds or donations.” Maga Inc. or Make America Great Inc. is a super PAC that supports Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.
Wired also reported that business leaders could have one-on-one meetings with Trump for $5 million on Mar-A-Lago. A source familiar with them previously told Wired that the $5 million conference has become a “hot ticket” in the business community.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the event, or did not include the event in the president’s official timetable.
Experts spoke to these candlelight dinners about their abnormal nature. “I don’t remember his administration’s request for millions of dollars in the first few weeks of the administration,” Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, previously told Wired. “The focus is on fundraising, more about people who get favorable treatments to donate it to Trump.”
The candlelight dinner takes place the same weekend as the Palm Race, an annual celebration of motorsports in Palm Beach, Florida. A weekend event for the celebration took place on Mar-a-Lago on Sunday afternoon and was made with “street sports cars and cars equipped with racing traditions, unique concept cars, celebrities-owned racing and racing history cars”. Many of these cars appeared at candlelight dinners, including guests around grated luxury cars at Rolls Royce, Bugatti and Lamborghini, as well as other luxury cars displayed on the lawn, according to Instagram Reels.
The night also coincided with the serious escalation of Trump’s crackdown on immigration. When Trump and Musk were dining with Maga donors on Saturday, a federal judge ordered the White House to stop expelling people, while the Trump administration accused members of Venezuelan gangs. Despite the ruling, two planes carrying suspected gang members flew from Texas to El Salvador. According to reports, senior officials told Axios that the ruling had no force “because the flight was in international waters.”
