In court filings, the concert giant disclosed that the White House was directly involved in talks ahead of a settlement that critics have called a "sweetheart deal."
The Live Nation logo is displayed at a Live Nation corporate office on March 9, 2026 in Beverly Hills, California. Mario Tama/Getty Images
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Live Nation has confirmed that the White House was directly involved in talks leading up to the surprise settlement of its federal antitrust case, including a conversation between CEO Michael Rapino and President Donald Trump in which the status of the monopoly case “came up.”
In court papers filed Monday (June 22) and obtained by Billboard, the concert giant disclosed that not only the Department of Justice but also “members of the White House” took part in the negotiations that came before the company’s abrupt March settlement with federal enforcers.
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The contact with the administration was principally with the Office of the White House Counsel, Live Nation said, but also included a February conversation directly between Rapino and the president himself.
“Mr. Rapino discussed a variety of topics related to Live Nation’s business with President Donald J. Trump,” the company’s lawyers write in the filing. “The status of DOJ’s lawsuit against defendants came up but no substantive terms regarding any potential settlement were discussed.”
The disclosures are significant because there’s been much speculation about the direct involvement of the White House in Live Nation’s settlement with DOJ, which critics have argued was far too lenient. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Trump personally pushed aides to make the deal; Congressional Democrats have called it a “sweetheart deal” won via lobbying by Trump allies.
Following the settlement, a coalition of state attorneys general refused to sign a deal they said was too weak to address Live Nation’s alleged antitrust violations. They pushed ahead with the trial, eventually winning a total victory: a jury verdict that the company is an illegal monopoly in the live music industry.
Those states are currently seeking severe penalties against Live Nation, including an order that would force it to sell its Ticketmaster subsidiary. But the judge is also weighing whether to approve the DOJ’s earlier settlement, which imposed key behavioral changes but avoided any kind of structural breakup.
With Monday’s filing, Live Nation was complying with legal requirements to disclose all communications with the feds ahead of such a settlement. In it, the company confirmed that the talks included Rapino, as well as longtime Trump allies Kellyanne Conway, Mike Davis and Richard Grenell, plus CFO Joe Berchtold, top company lawyer Dan Wall and numerous outside counsel.
Talks began in February 2025, with Live Nation spending several months primarily communicating with the DOJ’s Antitrust Division in an effort to “open settlement discussions.” Starting in June 2025, those talks also expanded to include the U.S. Attorney General’s office. Formal settlement negotiations started in September 2025 with an initial Live Nation proposal, followed by a government counteroffer in January 2026.
From February 2026 to March 2026, the company says it held “numerous” settlement meetings with the DOJ antitrust unit, the Attorney General’s office and, later, the White House Counsel’s office. It was during this time that Live Nation publicly urged the DOJ that it was “Time to Move On,” before quietly deleting that statement a day later.
Monday’s court filing did not disclose any additional details of Rapino’s conversation with Trump, other than to say it involved the case but did not directly include “substantive terms regarding any potential settlement.” A spokesperson for Live Nation declined to comment on the filing.
When the deal was suddenly announced on March 9, the jury trial had already been underway for a week. The settlement, privately reached on March 5, was a surprise to most, including the states that had filed the case alongside DOJ, as well as the federal judge overseeing the case. It was even a surprise to the DOJ’s own trial lawyers, who said they’d been unaware of the deal until that morning.
The DOJ’s lead attorney, David E. Dahlquist, left the agency a month later. At an industry conference earlier this month, he publicly confirmed that he had not participated in the settlement talks: “When I stood up and gave the opening statement in this case, I believed that we were going to win,” Dahlquist said. “And when the settlement was entered, I still believed that we were going to win.”
