Just before 7 a.m. Thursday morning, it was chilly but sunny, as Michael Bloomberg walked into Konditorei, the quaint café on the Sun Valley resort property, with his partner and asked for a table for four. Sheryl Sandberg and Tom Bernthal came in hand in hand minutes later, and when she saw Bloomberg in a booth toward the back of the restaurant, she exclaimed, “This is why I come to Sun Valley!” They all dined together, with Sandberg and Bloomberg next to each other on the booth side of the table, intensely engaged in conversation.
Such are the chance meetings at the annual Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. While the Sun Valley Lodge itself, where the moguls are housed for the summit, is under strict security with no one allowed in who isn’t an attendee or employee, the parking lot of the resort and other amenities, shops, and the post office on the property remain open to the public. This includes a boutique called Panache, which is advertising its extensive collection of Diane von Furstenberg items for purchase. Von Furstenberg is a regular attendee of the annual conference with her husband, Barry Diller, who was photographed biking on Thursday at a spry 83 years old. I parked myself at Konditorei for the day, a few paces away from a barricade, where photographers posted up at noon, snapping pictures of attendees walking or riding by on bicycles between conference sessions.
In recent years, access for journalists hoping to rub shoulders with the elite has been severely limited. The panel sessions themselves are entirely off the record, with those lucky few journalists like Bret Baier, Erin Burnett, and Gayle King (sporting a stiletto-sneaker hybrid), who are high profile enough to be invited as guests and panelists sworn to secrecy. Reporters used to be able to mingle with conference attendees at the bar inside the Sun Valley Lodge, but media is now no longer permitted inside the building at all, relegated to snapping photos from a dedicated area. The entire premises are crawling with security: There are teams hired by the resort itself, as well as private staff for individual guests of importance. Police on bicycles are constantly circling the property.
One victim of the strict security policy thus far was New York Post reporter James Franey, who was asked to leave the premises on Wednesday after approaching Ivanka Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to ask questions. “We have had complaints that you have been harassing the guests, and you are going to be asked to leave the property,” Franey was told, he recounted in a column on the incident. He writes that he was also asked to put his name on a no-trespass list, which he refused to sign. “My comment: Loosen up, Randy,” he added, referring to the man who introduced himself to the reporter as Sun Valley’s head of security. When I saw Ivanka grabbing coffee Thursday afternoon with Wendi Deng Murdoch, I kept a respectful distance to avoid the same fate.
Puck’s Dylan Byers, who is also here in Sun Valley, first reported the incident, comparing Franey to Fox Business correspondent and Post columnist Charlie Gasparino, who had an altercation with security when reporting from the conference in 2014. Byers wrote that Gasparino was the “catalyst” for Allen & Company’s decision to block all journalists from entering the lodge going forward. “Thanks, Charlie,” he quipped in his Wednesday evening newsletter.
Gasparino, however, refuses to take sole blame, telling me that by 2014, the lodge was already in a “lockdown situation,” with only one night when media was permitted to enter. “The notion that I was the one that caused them to close the lodge—it was [already] closed that year!” Gasparino adds. Even after his bust-up with security, which he says was entirely unprompted, Gasparino tells me he’s been back for coverage since, saying, “It was like nothing. We’d laugh about it.”
“Ridiculous” was Gasparino’s word for conference security. “I don’t necessarily blame them, because the rich assholes that go to this conference, they want the top security and, by the way, they deserve it. I mean, they’re gazillionaires.” Still, the restrictive atmosphere is onereason he’s thrilled to not be out in Idaho. “What makes it so absurd is that they want the coverage,” he added. “All these rich people, they all run media companies, and they don’t want to talk to the media.” While Michael Bloomberg was inside, a photographer from the news organization he owns was relegated to the perimeter.
“It is literally the dumbest thing in the world, and it’s all sponsored by some fucking investment bank that makes a gazillion dollars every time it churns a transaction that literally blows up in two years,” Gasparino said, not mincing words. “I mean, it’s this circle jerk that is ridiculous.”
One network that regularly has unique access to conference attendees, even with the media restrictions, is CNBC. Andrew Ross Sorkin and Becky Quick are at this year’s event as moderators, according to the network. Julia Boorstin, CNBC’s senior media and tech correspondent, is also here for coverage, leveraging her sources for the network to secure exclusive interviews with attendees, as in years past. This year the lineup included Casey Wasserman, Evan Spiegel, Reid Hoffman, and more.
“I always value the opportunity to interview CEOs in Sun Valley where the Allen & Co. conference gathers the most powerful leaders across industries,” Boorstin tells me. “While the sessions the event hosts are off the record and behind closed doors—and I’m careful to respect that—a number of key leaders join me up on the mountain overlooking the lodge for on-camera interviews.”
The conference, she says, serves as an opportunity for executives to gather and discuss the key issues facing their respective industries. Boorstin notes that this year the focus has been on AI, the political landscape, and the current appetite for M&A dealmaking. Later in the afternoon, I spotted Boorstin chatting with Sandberg, while on a stroll around the property.
I’m sticking around Sun Valley for the rest of the week to watch for unlikely friendships between attendees and billionaire athleisure fashion (I saw newlywed Lauren Sánchez sporting a white Lululemon zip-up and navy leggings), as well as who jockeys to get their private jet first on the runway to get back to real life Saturday morning.
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