The elite tech conference at Sun Valley, Idaho, was overshadowed by panic about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and anger at Jeffrey Katzenberg for propping him up.
Super-producer and media mogul Katzenberg, who is also Biden’s campaign co-chair, was in “damage control” at the exclusive conference, best known for its dealmaking as media elites rub shoulders with tech titans.
Attendees at the event, hosted by investment bank Allen & Company from July 9 to 13, privately slammed the movie executive for being “duplicitous” about Biden’s mental state, sources told The Post.
“Katzenberg was not getting a lot of meetings” one attendee said. “The talk about him was as negative as it’s ever been.”
The situation was far worse, the source adds, than when he lost investors $1.75 billion on the short lived streaming platform Quibi, which both launched and then dissolved in 2020.
“[Biden’s] condition has been getting worse… he isn’t going to get better,” the attendee added. “He [Katzenberg] didn’t apologize at all… nothing.”
The anger attendees directed at Katzenberg underscores the fact attendees privately — and publicly in the case of donors like Netflix founder Reed Hastings and Endeavor super agent Ari Emanuel — concede they do not believe Biden can win against Donald Trump in November.
“No one differed on one thing: The man [Biden] is incapable of running the country today and he should step down,” another source told The Post.
“It’s a foregone conclusion… Trump will sweep the presidency — it will be so lopsided it’s frightening.”
Even Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, previously a democratic from Arizona who switched her affiliation to independent in 2022, acknowledged at the conference Biden was “incoherent” in meetings she had with him nearly a year ago, sources told The Post.
“No one was angry other than a couple of reporters. :),” a spokesperson for Katzenberg told The Post.
Reps for Sinema and Allen and Company did not respond to a request for comment.
The Post previously reported Katzenberg, the Oscar-winning film mogul behind “The Lion King” has drawn the ire of Hollywood executives and movie stars for failing to acknowledge Biden’s alleged health issues while raising around $30 million for his re-election at at recent Hollywood event.
Sources told The Post, those they feel conned into raising cash for ailing President Biden’s re-election without being told the true extent of his decline.
Much of the usual chatter about mergers and acquisitions, the future of entertainment and the impact of artificial intelligence was overshadowed by concerns about the political future of the country.
“There is usually a lot of talk about finance but no one was talking about the economy this time,” the source added.
While many were alarmed about another Trump presidency, most attendees were realistic about the political reality, with Trump’s chances bolstered Monday by Elon Musk pledging $45m a month to his campaign up until the election.
“People don’t want Biden” another source said. “But they’re resigned to it.”
One notable defender of Biden was LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman who said in a panel he no longer speaks to venture capitalist Peter Thiel because he views support for Trump as a “moral issue,” according to a report in Puck.
Thiel, who was in the room, stood up to defend himself but turned “aggressively and condescendingly glib,” an attendee told the news outlet. While Thiel has yet to endorse Trump this election cycle, he was an early backer in 2016 and backed Trump vice presidential pick JD Vance to the tune of $10 million when Vance ran for an Ohio senate seat in 2022.
Even though most agreed Biden staying at the top of the ticket is inevitable, it didn’t stop conference goers from discussing who else they would like to see in The White House.
“Everyone was talking about who could replace Biden,” the attendee added.
An infromal poll was taken on who attendees wanted to see lead the Democratic party into the election, and the results were a blow to Biden.
While Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had been a favorite, sources told The Post Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Maryland Governor Wes Moore, who both spoke at the event, emerged as clear favorites to become potential democratic candidates down the road.
Rainomdo served as Rhode Island governor from 2015 to 2021 and Moore ran the Robin Hood foundation — a popular charity for Wall Street donors that was started by hedge fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones.
“She gets it,” a source said of Raimondo. “She was the big winner.”
Still another source told The Post they recognize it would be folly for anyone to try and oppose Trump, who survived an assassination attempt over the weekend, adding: “Who wants to run against a martyr?”
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