Seven US senators have demanded information about any meetings and communications between Live Nation and the US Department Of Justice. And in particular, whether the live giant’s lobbyists ever discussed the possible sacking of Gail Slater, the Assistant Attorney General who was heading up the US government’s antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation until she was pushed out of her job last week.
It seems likely they did. In a letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi, the senators claim that “one prominent lobbyist for Live Nation boasted that he directly recommended the firing of Gail Slater” and then “posted ‘good riddance’ on social media” when her resignation was announced.
The senators also note comments previously made by Slater’s former deputy, Roger Alford, who was sacked last year amid growing tensions between the DoJ’s antitrust team and Donald Trump allies elsewhere in the government department.
He predicted that the DoJ’s antitrust action against Live Nation may be abandoned - despite Slater seemingly being committed to it - because the live giant had hired a “bevy of cozy MAGA friends”.
With Slater being forced to stand down as the DoJ’s antitrust boss “only weeks prior to the trial” in the Live Nation antitrust case, the senators are “especially concerned about Live Nation’s attempts to evade responsibility by convincing DoJ leadership to settle the case on terms favourable to the company, rather than fans, artists and independent venues”.
The DoJ first filed a lawsuit accusing Live Nation and its Ticketmaster subsidiary of violating US competition law in May 2024 when Joe Biden was US President. The legal action claims that Live Nation routinely abuses its dominance across venue management, tour promotion and ticketing, with one possible remedy being to reverse the 2010 merger that brought Live Nation and Ticketmaster together.
There was speculation that the Live Nation litigation might be quietly dropped when Trump returned to the White House, given the President is generally very pro big business, and most of his closest allies are relaxed about big companies always getting bigger. However, after Trump appointed Slater, a former advisor to Vice President JD Vance, she chose to proceed with the Live Nation case.
Tensions between Slater’s antitrust team and officials elsewhere in the DoJ - especially Bondi - had been building for much of the last year.
Earlier this month Semafor reported that the Live Nation case was now at the centre of the escalating war between Slater and Bondi, in part because the live music firm had hired Trump allies Kellyanne Conway and Mike Davis to encourage top DoJ officials to force the antitrust team to settle out of court.
Then on Thursday Slater took to social media and wrote, “It is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust today. It was indeed the honour of a lifetime to serve in this role”.
The senators’ letter says that the circumstances around Slater’s departure, and Live Nation’s lobbying, “raise serious questions as to the Justice Department’s commitment to enforcing the antitrust laws based on the objective application of the law and the facts of any given case”.
“We have significant concern”, it goes on, “that the facts and law regarding a specific merger or anticompetitive conduct may be less important than a company’s ability to exert influence”. And whatever the facts and the law may say about Live Nation’s market dominance in live music, it seems to be very good at exerting influence, mainly by putting money into the bank accounts of MAGA veterans.
The senators, all Democrats, demand that the DoJ provide the dates and agendas of all meetings with Live Nation, plus any communications “regarding the potential settlement of the monopolisation case currently pending against the company”, and “all communications discussing the potential dismissal of Ms Slater, including with the White House and lobbyists for Live Nation or any other outside firm”.
We await to see if Bondi and the DoJ comply with any of that. If they do, it could cause some embarrassment for Live Nation, especially if it confirms close ties between the live giant and big players in the MAGA movement.