Prince Harry and Meghan Markle partied in Las Vegas with Wall Street billionaire Ken Griffin and Michael Kives, the “super networker” who has a finger in every Hollywood pie, Page Six can reveal.
Kives joined the “Montecito mafia” as he flew by private jet with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to watch Katy Perry’s final performance of her Las Vegas residency Saturday night.
And Griffin took a prime seat right next to Harry at the gig.
The 55-year-old Wall Street titan is worth a staggering $33.6 billion.
His presence raises intriguing questions about whether the Duke and Duchess of Sussex can look to him for help with their business and charitable activities.
The Wall Street titan is a Republican mega-donor while the Duchess of Sussex has made little secret of her liberal politics.
Meanwhile, Kives, a former aide to both Hillary and Bill Clinton and a former CAA top agent, used to represent Perry, but now runs an investment fund called K5 Global.
A well-placed Hollywood source told Page Six Kives is a “power broker,” and said, “This really presents a cozy picture of Meghan and Harry’s growing network. Who only knows what Harry and Griffin could be talking about.
“It’s all about power and money and who knows whom.”
We’re told that that noted environmentalists Harry, 39, and Markle, 42, and Kives, 42, were invited to Sin City by their billionaire mutual friends, Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd and her husband Michael Herd, an oil and gas heir from Texas.
The private plane trip caused accusations of hypocrisy.
Griffin met them there, while Markle was seen sitting close to Wolfe Herd at the Resorts World Theater.
“It’s a tangled web,” said the Hollywood source: “They all have friends in common. And it begs the question: will Meghan be seeking entrepreneurial advice or signing Whitney Wolfe Herd or Michael Kives on as Archewell donors or board members. Or both?”
Wolfe Herd’s exit as CEO of dating app Bumble was announced on Monday morning, just hours after the concert date, after the dating app’s share price slipped.
She will stay on as executive chair of the app.
Kives sat directly behind the couple, alongside his best pal Darnell Strom.
Strom was his one-time protege at Hollywood agents CAA and is now a partner at rival firm UTA, whose boss Jeremy Zimmer embarrassingly called Markle not a “great talent”.
(This prompted sources to tell Page Six that UTA had, in fact, been after Markle).
The source added: “It’s particularly curious as Meghan signed with Ari Emmanuel at WME and yet here she is with this CAA alum and a UTA partner.”
Insiders denied that the Sussexes are working with Kives in any capacity.
A source said that although the evening was definitely great networking, “There’s nothing Meghan can really do as she’s signed with WME and signed away the keys to the castle.”
Markle has been with WME since April and is still believed to be working on a new venture akin to Gwnyeth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand “Goop.”
However, we’re told that no plans have yet been fixed for the business.
Kives and his wife, Lydia, an attorney — who counts the Kardashians and Lauren Sanchez as friends — live near the Sussexes in Montecito.
Last year, they bought Ariana Grande’s historic Montecito home for $9.1 million.
Kives is also friends with Markle’s BFF Misha Nonoo and attended her wedding to oil heir Mikey Hess in Rome in September 2019, we’re told.
Nonoo was also at the Perry gig — sitting next to Markle.
The Herds, likewise, live in the neighborhood after splashing out $21 million on Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi’s Rancho San Leandro back in January.
They Sussexes and the Herds were joined on the 40-minute flight from Santa Barbara airport by stars Cameron Diaz, her husband Benji Madden — with whom the royals previously shared a cosy sushi dinner — and Zoe Saldana.
Griffin founded Citadel after studying at Harvard and is now one of the world’s richest men.
He owns the most expensive properties in New York, Miami and Chicago, a London home close to Buckingham Palace, and a lavish collection of modern art — and is known for throwing lavish parties for Citadel workers, previously having Perry perform in Chicago to mark the firm’s 25th anniversary.
The billionaire has also been a prolific political donor, almost exclusively to Republicans, although this year he abandoned his initial support for Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential run and is now on the sidelines and “continuing to assess the field,” according to those who know him.
He has donated $500m to Harvard and last month spoke out about antisemitism on campus, saying he would not employ student leaders who signed a letter which blamed Israel, not Hamas, for the terror groups October 7 massacre of 1,400 innocent civilians.
Kives is a fundraiser for the Clinton Foundation and helped fundraise for Hillary’s Presidential campaign, Both Hillary and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, attended his star-studded wedding in Palm Springs in 2019.
Kives was seen this summer hanging out with Bill Clinton in London
He later became a Hollywood agent with well-known clients including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba.
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