34 states rejected DOJ deal, won jury finding of monopoly
The settlement the Justice Department reached with Live Nation last March grew out of a direct presidential intervention, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation drawing on people familiar with the matter and court records. Thirty-four state attorneys general refused to join the deal, viewing it as so favorable to the company that they pressed on to trial. In April, a jury found Live Nation illegally monopolized the ticketing market for major concerts in the United States, and the plaintiff states have asked a federal judge to order the company broken up.
The investigation describes Trump telling a senior DOJ official to “Settle it” days before the trial’s scheduled start, in a call the official later described to associates. The resulting deal allowed Live Nation to keep Ticketmaster — its key subsidiary that the Justice Department had vowed to force the company to sell less than two years earlier — and to retain control of many of the country’s best amphitheaters.
The intervention came after months of unproductive negotiations between the agency and the company, with some in the government pressing to break up the giant. On Friday, Feb. 27, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino met Trump in the Oval Office to discuss improving bookings at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, according to people familiar with the conversation. Trump also wanted to know why the company hadn’t reached a deal over its lawsuit, the people said. The president’s directive to settle followed the meeting.
On March 5, Rapino returned to the White House, meeting White House Counsel David Warrington and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi in the Roosevelt Room to put the finishing touches on a deal. James McDonald of Sullivan & Cromwell — the New York-based firm that represents Trump in his personal legal troubles — accompanied him, along with Live Nation CFO Joe Berchtold. The states weren’t represented. Trump stopped by to check on the negotiations. “How is this not settled yet?” he asked, according to people familiar with the matter. The two sides reached a deal that afternoon.
The six-page term sheet, signed by Rapino and DOJ antitrust chief Omeed Assefi, required Live Nation to end 13 exclusive booking agreements, give venues that used Ticketmaster’s back-end services the option of selling tickets through a competitor, and cap the ancillary ticketing fees it charges at its venues at 15%. The company also agreed to fund a $280 million settlement pool for the states, with the total depending on how many joined.
The agreement created confusion in the ongoing trial. Live Nation’s top in-house lawyer, Dan Wall, said he hadn’t known the deal had been signed when he met with the federal judge on March 6. “I frankly thought that there was still drafting and wordsmithing going on,” Wall told the court. The DOJ’s co-lead trial lawyer, David Dahlquist, said in court that he had only received the settlement that morning and hadn’t reviewed it yet. Judge Arun Subramanian berated both sides for failing to disclose the deal. “It shows absolute disrespect for the court, for the jury, for this entire process,” he said.
Most of the states in the case — including some controlled by Republicans — viewed the settlement as so favorable to the company that they refused to join it and continued to trial. A group of senior DOJ trial attorneys resigned in April over what they saw as political interference in the antitrust division’s affairs, according to people familiar with the matter. After the jury verdict, the plaintiff states asked Subramanian to force Live Nation to sell Ticketmaster. More than 20 of the states raised “significant concerns that the Settlement is not in the public interest” in a July letter asking the judge to order disclosure of the settlement’s terms and how it was reached.
Sullivan & Cromwell’s role drew attention inside the department. Live Nation told DOJ officials in December that it had hired the firm to take over settlement talks, in part because of its close ties to DOJ leadership, a person familiar with the matter said. Weeks before Trump’s call, the company said it had brought in a fresh set of lawyers from the firm. DOJ trial lawyers were surprised: McDonald, the new lead attorney, wasn’t an antitrust specialist, though his two partners on the case were, and Live Nation already had a deep bench of top-flight counsel from other firms. Within months, Trump nominated McDonald to be Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, and at the end of July he became one of the most powerful law-enforcement officials in the nation.
DOJ officials also learned that Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s private legal coordinator, had taken a keen interest in resolving the case, according to people familiar with the matter. The officials said they didn’t know whether he was working for Trump or Live Nation, or both. Epshteyn also advises the president on personnel, and some senior DOJ officials partly owe their jobs — or terminations — to his influence, the people said.
The settlement’s path ran past the antitrust trial team. The DOJ had drafted a response to Live Nation’s initial proposal demanding the company spin off Ticketmaster, a business that accounted for more than $3 billion in revenue in 2025 — but Trent McCotter, then an aide to the deputy attorney general, told the agency’s trial attorneys to remove that language, according to people familiar with the matter. The department’s January counterproposal made no mention of divesting Ticketmaster, though it required the company to sell or give up control of about three-quarters of its amphitheaters and to open-source its ticketing software; Live Nation still viewed it as a nonstarter. Antitrust chief Gail Slater, a vocal opponent of monopolies in tech, left the agency in February and was replaced by Assefi, one of her deputies.
The White House and the Justice Department defended the deal. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said the president “has not weaponized the Department of Justice against his political foes or used it to help his friends” and said the department is “focused on restoring law and order and keeping Americans safe.” A DOJ spokeswoman said the agency’s settlement prioritized quick benefits to consumers over a yearslong legal battle the department risked losing, and that its terms enable competition and lower prices. “Artists are now allowed to use other promoters at Live Nation venues,” the spokeswoman said, adding that fans benefit from service fee caps for concerts at amphitheaters and can obtain tickets on a variety of platforms.
Wall defended the settlement and the company’s decision to go over the heads of the antitrust division. “Our critics are comparing this settlement to the irrational hope of breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster,” he said. “The only reason we went above the Antitrust Division to senior DOJ leadership is because no one there would speak to us. When you’ve been unable to get a meeting for six months, you have every right to try something else.”
The case dates to 2024, when the DOJ sued Live Nation, alleging the company dominated promotions, ticketing, venues, artist management and sponsorships and used its power to stifle competition, driving prices and fees higher. “It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster,” then-Attorney General Merrick Garland said when the lawsuit was filed. Public frustration had boiled over in 2022, when Ticketmaster botched ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, leaving fans waiting for hours in virtual queues only to have tickets disappear from their carts or the site crash. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia joined the lawsuit.
Trump had appeared eager to take on the concert industry, signing an executive order in March 2025 aimed at ending ticket-price gouging and calling for stronger consumer protections. But advisers offered conflicting counsel, and Trump was torn between his dealmaking and populist impulses, according to people familiar with the matter. In May, Trump said he would distance himself from the Kennedy Center after a federal judge ruled that his name must be removed from the building; Ticketmaster said talks about taking over the center’s ticketing are on hold while it is renovated.
Subramanian must now decide both a remedy for the monopoly and whether to approve the federal settlement. Asked about the White House’s role in the Live Nation settlement at his confirmation hearing, Attorney General Todd Blanche replied: “I wasn’t directly part of discussions, so I can’t speak to that. But I’m most certainly not saying they were not part of it.”