Celebrations Big and Small Are Getting Longer and More Extravagant for the Rich
4 min
Milestone birthdays and anniversaries, weddings, and graduations are momentous life occasions that some like to mark with large and elaborate celebrations.
And the deep-pocketed set are still in catch-up mode after a party-throwing standstill during the pandemic that went on for many months during the height of the lockdowns and social distancing. Bashes since then have become ever more extravagant and experiential—mere get-togethers, they’re not.
Hosts are also seeking any excuse to throw an event and having parties with the same “wow” factor for far less significant reasons, or for micro-occasions as they’re called, and even “just because,” according to luxury event planners who work with this elite set.
Colin Cowie, a planner based in New York and Miami who regularly orchestrates multimillion-dollar gatherings and was behind Jennifer Lopez’s and Ben Affleck’s wedding, calls it the “event revolution.”
“Large-scale events have become the norm,” Cowie says. “The wealthy, who are used to celebrating their life moments in a big way couldn’t do anything during the pandemic and are now going all out for anything they host.”
His company, Colin Cowie Lifestyle, plans 30% more events today than pre-Covid and has a lineup booked for the next two years. An example includes an upcoming million-dollar dinner party in the Hamptons simply to socialise with friends. It’s an affair with free-flowing Dom Perignon, centre-cut filet mignons, and unlimited caviar.
Calen Rose
Other high-end planners also attribute the rise of over-the-top celebrations to a “live life to the fullest” attitude that’s become prevalent in the last few years. But they say that these parties aren’t necessarily about spending more than before—rather, they’re increasingly creative, thoughtful, and, with respect to weddings, longer.
Lynn Easton, a Charleston-based planner, says that her typical wedding used to span two days and entailed a rehearsal dinner plus the wedding itself. “Now, it’s a five-day bonanza with events like a groomsman lunch,” Easton says.
Easton also plans glitzy milestone birthdays such as one for a 60th where the host flew 60 friends and family to a private island. Dinners were multi-hour affairs in various locations around the isle with the showpiece being a five-course meal where the food was presented on dishes that were hand-carved in ice.
Another planner, Victoria Dubin, based in New York and Miami, says that, in a new precedent, the weddings she’s tapped to design kick off with striking welcome meals. She recently planned an al fresco rehearsal dinner at the Brooklyn pizzeria Roberta’s that recreated a Tuscan garden. Elements included potted herbs, lemon trees, vintage olive oil cans, ceramic plates, and table cards presented with palm leaves in limoncello cans.
Aletiza Photo
Pashmina shawls hung from chairs to keep guests warm, and freshly baked pizzas and Aperol spritzes were in ready supply throughout the evening.
Stacy Teckin, the groom’s mother, hosted the party with her husband, Ian, and says she sought to pull off a dinner that made an impression on their guests. “The wedding was delayed because of Covid, and now that we had the chance to celebrate, we wanted to go all out,” Teckin says. “I’m not sure we would have done that before.”
In another example, acclaimed planner Norma Cohen threw a wild safari-themed bar mitzvah for a client.
Norma Cohen Productions
The memorable occasion transpired at Spring Studios in downtown Manhattan and saw 400 guests be transported to the African plains: Details included mammoth replicas of wildlife such as giraffes and elephants, servers in safari themed attire, and entertainment dressed like giraffes. The event was one of several over-the-top parties Cohen’s arranged recently.
A four-day wedding in Paris where the ceremony was in a historic chateau and the host paid for guests to stay at Hotel Crillon, one of the city’s most luxurious properties, also ranks high in Cohen’s memory.
Then there’s a destination party in London that Cohen planned for a client who was turning 40. It as a six-day affair with dinners at swanky spots such as Cipriani, the Arts Club, and Cecconi’s at Soho House. The finale was Lancaster House, a mansion in St. James, where guests were entertained by cabaret dancers from the famed Ibiza club Lio Ibiza and feasted on prime rib and lamb chops and imbibed on Krug champagne.
“People today don’t want to host events,” Cohen says. “They want experiences that take you away to a different place and make you forget that the real world exists.”
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From making unpopular decisions to learning when to listen, leaders from five businesses reveal what nobody prepared them for — and how running a company has challenged their expectations.
Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Elon Musk is exploring a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX, a deal that could reshape the future of AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and space technology. With a combined valuation potentially reaching $3.5 trillion, the move could bring Musk’s vision of an interconnected technology ecosystem closer to reality, although a deal remains uncertain.
5 min
Elon Musk has engineered ties between Tesla TSLA 3.41%increase; up pointing triangle and SpaceX SPCX 7.79%increase; up pointing triangle that are hard to break, and now he wants to fuse them together permanently.
Musk has run both Tesla and SpaceX concurrently over the past two decades, using a schedule that dictated which days he spent focused on each business.
The companies have often shared resources and personnel, signaling their close ties. Last year, SpaceX looked into creating a spacesuit for Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, a person familiar with the matter said. Tesla last week showed off its new Roadster, a vehicle featuring SpaceX rocket thrusters that it hopes to soon bring to market.
And in recent months, Musk has repositioned both companies by expanding beyond their core operations toward a shared mission centered on artificial intelligence.
The world’s richest man on Tuesday signaled his interest in tying up SpaceX and Tesla, marking what would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Because he serves as chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk said committees of independent directors at both companies are evaluating a possible deal, adding that a transaction might not come to fruition.
The committees will likely evaluate, with lawyers and bankers, how each company would fare in a potential deal and how a deal might best be structured. They then present their conclusions to their respective boards, who typically vote on whether to proceed.
“It’s an odd Kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” Musk told SpaceX investors on Tuesday in response to an analyst’s question about a potential deal.
For Musk, the merger supports his vision of a world full of autonomous cars, humanoid robots and weekly rocket launches, as well as the data centers and satellites required to keep the whole thing running.
Some investors and analysts said they expect a transaction would be structured as an all-stock deal, with SpaceX potentially paying a modest premium for Tesla shares.
SpaceX, which has a market value of about $2 trillion, said it is seeing sharp growth in revenue across its businesses, which include operating data centers, launching rockets and operating satellite networks such as the internet service Starlink. Tesla is valued at about $1.5 trillion and is expanding its operations beyond its automotive and energy business. Shares in both companies traded higher following the news Tuesday.
Musk’s substantial ownership stakes in both companies, along with voting control at SpaceX, has enabled him to set the deal in motion. Analysts and investors said the deal will probably face regulatory scrutiny internationally, though some see Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration as an asset to getting approval.
Blurred lines
The companies haven’t said which directors are on the special committees evaluating a potential deal. Several SpaceX and Tesla board members have either personal or business ties to Musk. And like Musk, venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis sits on both boards.
In a filing this week, Tesla outlined millions of dollars in business agreements with SpaceX and its subsidiaries last year, including $143 million in car sales to SpaceX, $3.3 million in advertising that it bought on the social-media platform X and $430 million in revenue from the sale of Megapack batteries for SpaceX’s data centers.
The companies also split the cost of resources including the use of Musk’s SpaceX jet and the bill for his personal security, which he runs through a private company.
Employees at both companies routinely move between companies to work on special projects, and some executives have dual roles, including Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both SpaceX and Tesla, and Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla who runs a joint venture with SpaceX called Digital Optimus.
Over the years, Musk has launched new startups within his empire, including brain-implant company Neuralink, underground-tunnel developer the Boring Company and xAI, the AI startup that merged with SpaceX in February.
It is that AI business that Musk thinks can serve a market worth tens of trillions of dollars, justifying the need for a merger.
The business case goes like this: Tesla is developing robotaxis and robots, which it calls “physical AI.” SpaceX is working on the back end of physical AI: the data-center capacity and internet connection required for those robotaxis and robots to operate continuously.
“I don’t see what the value of Tesla is if it’s not merged with SpaceX,” said investment adviser Ross Gerber, a former Tesla bull turned critic invested in both companies. “If they don’t merge, the brains of everything that runs Tesla is owned by another company.”
On top of it all, both companies face constraints on the supply chains they need to make this world a reality, particularly when it comes to chips. To address this, Musk earlier this year announced a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and Intel to design and manufacture chips in Texas. “The most epic chip-building exercise by far,” he has said.
Musk at the wheel
For Musk, a merger would also solve two problems: demands on his attention and his lack of control at Tesla.
Tesla for years was Musk’s only public company, a status that came with greater scrutiny. There, Musk reports to a public board, as well as individual investors who make up around 30% of Tesla’s voting power, according to FactSet.
The question of Musk’s attention became a particular focus for investors and the board in recent years after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and launched xAI in 2023, and again in 2025 as he spent time in Washington, D.C., running the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of President Trump’s second term.
As Tesla’s car business suffered in 2025, Musk threatened to take his AI ambitions outside the company if he wasn’t granted 25% voting control. Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a new pay package for Musk, which created a path for him to vastly expand his stake.
As of Sept. 30, Musk owned a roughly 20% stake in Tesla, according to the company’s proxy filing.
The SpaceX IPO gave Musk a different path. When SpaceX went public in June, the deal’s structure enabled him to have more than 80% voting power at the company—so much that he can’t be fired and decisions can’t be made without his support.
If SpaceX acquires Tesla, he will likely stay in control.
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