Happy Friday,
Jeff Bezos sponsored the Met Gala this month. Individual tickets were $100,000. Tables were $350,000. His net worth, at time of seating, was $224 billion, which is a number that stops meaning anything after a certain point and just becomes a weather system.
The theme was "Costume Art." The dress code was "Fashion Is Art." Tech companies bought tables alongside fashion houses for the first time at scale — Meta, OpenAI, Amazon, and Snapchat each at $350,000. Silicon Valley arrived at high fashion's center stage, sat down, and ordered everything.
It did not go smoothly.
Outside the museum, activists organized a counter-event called the Ball Without Billionaires, which is the most precisely named event in the history of events. They set up a runway in the Meatpacking District. The models were Amazon warehouse workers. Lisa Ann Walter from Abbott Elementary emceed, reading a list of labor grievances while warehouse employees walked the runway in front of an audience that did not pay $100,000 to attend.
Then someone placed approximately 300 bottles of fake urine around the perimeter of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This was a statement about Amazon's driver bathroom policies. We want to be clear about the number. Three hundred. Not twenty. Not fifty. Somewhere, a committee of activists sat in a room, discussed logistics, and agreed — by consensus or vote — that 300 was the correct number of symbolic urine bottles to place around one of the most important cultural institutions in the Western Hemisphere. They sourced them. They transported them. They deployed them. The planning alone must have required a spreadsheet.
Bezos attended. This is confirmed. What he did not do is walk the red carpet. The man who paid to host the most photographed event on the planet specifically avoided the part where photographs happen.
He also reportedly had actor Justin Theroux removed from the guest list because the actor's latest movie character apparently resembled someone Jeff found unflattering. The details are vague. The implication is not. The man who runs the company that flags your reviews for "inauthentic activity" could not handle a fictional portrayal at a party he paid for.
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani publicly declined his invitation, saying he needed to focus on affordable housing. This is the most diplomatically devastating RSVP in recorded history.
To recap the evening: sponsored the party, hid from cameras, banned someone for being too accurate, and presided over an event whose exterior perimeter was decorated with 300 bottles of symbolic pee.
The man's companies process 1.6 million packages a day. He could not manage the logistics of his own party.
Greg was not invited to the Met Gala.
Greg does not attend events where individual tickets cost more than his monthly ASIN-level ad spend. Greg was at home, reviewing his search term reports and eating leftover pasta. Greg's bathroom breaks are not tracked by anyone. Nobody placed symbolic urine around Greg's house. Greg did not need to ban anyone from anything.
Greg is, on the whole, fine.
This Week In Amazon
Amazon sued a bot for shopping on Amazon. Then launched one that shops on everyone else. In November, Amazon sued Perplexity AI for sending an AI agent to browse Amazon without authorization. A judge blocked it in March. Two months later, Amazon launched Buy for Me — an AI that visits Shopify and Wix stores, generates AI-written listings for products those merchants never listed on Amazon, and routes orders through randomly generated email addresses. A stationery shop in Virginia is now shipping stress balls she doesn't carry because Amazon's AI confidently listed them under her brand. Amazon's official response: "This is helping them." The self-awareness gap continues to ship on time.
The tiger pajama price-fixing emails are exactly as bad as you'd hope. Unsealed California antitrust filings show Amazon pulled a seller's Buy Box because his tiger toddler pajamas were $19.99 on Amazon — one cent more than $19.98 on Walmart. One cent. On tiger pajamas. For toddlers. Same filings reveal Amazon allegedly raised dog treat prices, then contacted the manufacturer to make sure Chewy matched. Three antitrust trials in 2027. Any could force a structural breakup.
Amazon Ads hit $17.24B in Q1. They threw themselves a party. At the annual Upfront, Amazon announced 300 million monthly ad-supported consumers, an Oprah podcast deal, and a NASCAR feature called the "Burn Bar." We are going to remain calm about the Burn Bar. What wasn't on stage: any mention of why your CPC keeps climbing while your conversion rate doesn't.
Quick Win
Open Amazon's search bar and type a conversational question about your category — the way a customer would ask a friend. "What's the best organic protein powder for smoothies" or "which stainless steel water bottle keeps drinks cold longest." Look at what Alexa for Shopping returns. It's not a keyword results page anymore. It's a conversational answer with comparison cards and personalized recommendations. If your listings aren't surfacing, check three things for your top 5 ASINs this week: A+ Content (Alexa pulls from it), product attribute completeness (every empty field is a gap the AI skips), and answered customer questions (Alexa references them directly). Rufus is gone. Alexa is the search bar. Deepest attribute data wins, not best keyword stuffing.
Amazon will still be here Monday. The fake urine will have been cleaned up by then. The reimbursement claim will not have been processed by then. The Met Gala will be over. Your CPC will not be lower. Greg will still be fine.
Some things are permanent. Some things are temporary. Amazon has never been great at labeling which is which.
P.S. If you read this and immediately thought of one specific person who needs to see it, forward it. They can subscribe at newsletter.myAMZelite.com.
Any questions? Book a meeting with me here.
Have a great weekend.
Dan Head
Founder, AMZ Elite
