Michael Rapino and Donald Trump Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images; Andrew Harnik/Getty Images Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino spoke with President Donald Trump in the weeks before the company had settled with the Department of Justice in its monopoly lawsuit, Live Nation confirmed in court documents filed earlier this week.
In the document, filed in federal court on Monday, Live Nation disclosed numerous communications with representatives at the DOJ and the White House, saying that the company had been in conversations between February of 2025 and March of 2026 to discuss a potential settlement over the antitrust suit first filed in May of 2024.
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Among those conversations, in February of 2026, Live Nation said Rapino “discussed a variety of topics related to Live Nation’s business with President Donald J. Trump, adding that “the status of DOJ’s lawsuit against Defendants came up but no substantive terms regarding any potential settlement were discussed.”
Live Nation disclosed the communications this week as part of procedure in the Antitrust Procedures and Penalties Act. The conversation between Trump and Rapino was one of several different communications Live Nation had with federal representatives over the course of about a year.
Live Nation didn’t respond to request for further comment on the matter.
Live Nation listed nearly a dozen people as representatives of the company who’d substantively participated in the conversations. Along with Rapino and CFO Joe Berchtold, those listed as Live Nation representatives included the likes of prominent Trumpworld figures Kellyanne Conway, Mike Davis and Richard Grenell. Grenell, who was tapped to run the Kennedy Center from 2025 until earlier this year, was appointed to Live Nation’s board of directors in a move that courted controversy from Live Nation’s critics as a “thinly-veiled attempt to clash a legal proceeding.”
In the document, Live Nation said Davis and fellow Live Nation legal rep William Levi sought to open settlement discussions in early 2025. By June of that year, Live Nation reps had met with the DOJ at the Office of the Attorney General, which Live Nation said “led to the commencement of settlement discussions” with the DOJ last September.
Live Nation said it discussed a settlement in February and March of this year, first with the DOJ and then subsequently with the office of white house counsel. DOJ assistant attorney general Gail Slater had stepped down from her post in February.
The case went to trial in March, but days into the trial, the DOJ had settled with Live Nation in a move that seemed to surprise the plaintiff states participating in the case as well as the judge overseeing the proceedings. The settlement was criticized by democratic lawmakers, with senator Amy Klobuchar saying “it is clear the American people got the raw end of the deal.”
In a statement after the settlement, Rapino called the deal “a major step in improving the concert experience for artists and fans throughout the United States.”
More than 30 states decided to continue with the trial on their own, enlisting prominent antitrust lawyer Jeffrey Kessler as their counsel. The states won the trial, and are pushing to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Both the states and Live Nation await a decision from the court on what remedies are determined to be necessary on the matter.
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