NEW YORK: The Sun Valley Conference, the annual confab for tech, media and business moguls held every July in Idaho, is an event that’s hard for some people to turn down, even it means running into someone you’d probably rather avoid for now.

       Outgoing Meta Platforms Inc chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg is on the guest list this year after announcing earlier this month that she was stepping down.

       Her boss, Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg, is also listed as attending.

       Elon Musk, whose highly leveraged bid for Twitter Inc has turned out to be far from straightforward, is included.

       So is Parag Agrawal, the CEO of Musk’s target.

       Former Walt Disney Co CEO Bob Iger, who left the company in December, and his successor, Bob Chapek, are both on the list. Ninety-one-year-old mogul Rupert Murdoch, a frequent guest in the past, is not listed as attending this year.

       But his sons Lachlan and James and ex-wife Wendi are.

       Probably the most prominent non-attendee this year is Amazon.com Inc chairman Jeff Bezos, a regular who stepped down as CEO of the online retailing giant last year.

       Dubbed the “summer camp for moguls,” Allen & Co’s annual invite-only jamboree has historically been a fertile ground for media deals.

       And in a likely nod to the pandemic, Pfizer Inc CEO Albert Bourla is listed as attending, although the event has always had guests from the healthcare field.

       Regulars this year include Berkshire Hathaway Inc hairman Warren Buffett, Paramount Global chairman Shari Redstone, Microsoft Corp founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, sports mogul Casey Wasserman and Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP. — Bloomberg