VANITY FAIR MADE SAM ALTMAN A COVER STAR — THE BACKLASH WAS INSTANT

Vanity Fair has drawn backlash for putting OpenAI co-founder and chief executive Sam Altman at the top of its revived New Establishment list, returning for the first time in a decade to identify people who have defined the moment. The editors describe the list as a reflection of the world as they see it rather than how they would like it to be, but audiences questioned a tech billionaire being given the glossy cover treatment usually reserved for cultural figures.

Playwright Jeremy O. Harris voiced the concern directly to Vanity Fair's global editorial director Mark Guiducci, saying Guiducci and Anna Wintour have power over these figures' self-perception through events such as the Vanity Fair party and the Met Gala, and had handed tech billionaires that social standing without them doing the other legwork. Author and journalist Tracey Spicer discussed the risks of such covers, with cultural credibility described as the one thing tech billionaires cannot necessarily buy but fashion, art and entertainment increasingly hand to them.