Live Nation has told a federal court that President Donald Trump was briefly present at the meeting where the terms of its antitrust settlement with the US Department of Justice were finalized.
The disclosure appears in an amended filing that Live Nation and Ticketmaster submitted to New York federal court on October 21.
“President Trump briefly appeared at this meeting but did not participate in any substantive settlement discussions,” the filing states.
That meeting took place on March 5 and was attended by representatives of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, the DOJ’s Antitrust Division and senior leadership offices, and the Office of the White House Counsel, according to the filing. A term sheet setting out the deal’s key points was signed the same day.
The five-page amended filing can be read in full here.
The DOJ settlement, announced a week into the antitrust trial in March, would let Live Nation keep ownership of Ticketmaster.
It still needs the approval of US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who must decide whether it is in the public interest under the Tunney Act, a 1974 law governing DOJ antitrust settlements.
That law also requires a company settling with the DOJ to file a description of its communications with federal officials concerning or relevant to the deal.
Live Nation first filed that description on June 22.
That filing referred to the March 5 meeting but did not mention that Trump had been there.
The October filing does not change any of the settlement’s terms.
It does, however, rewrite Live Nation’s account of a conversation between Trump and Live Nation President and CEO Michael Rapino in February 2026.
The June filing stated: “In February 2026, Mr. Rapino discussed a variety of topics related to Live Nation’s business with President Donald J. Trump; the status of DOJ’s lawsuit against Defendants came up but no substantive terms regarding any potential settlement were discussed.”
The October version reads: “In February 2026, President Donald J. Trump called Mr. Rapino to discuss issues related to the Kennedy Center; the President inquired about the status of the DOJ’s lawsuit against Defendants but no substantive terms regarding any potential settlement were discussed.”
The new wording says it was Trump who contacted Rapino, and Trump who asked about the lawsuit.
The filing does not say on what date in February that contact took place.
Richard Grenell, whom Trump appointed president of the Kennedy Center in 2025, joined Live Nation’s board in May 2025. He stepped down from the Kennedy Center role in March 2026.
Both versions of the filing list Grenell among the Live Nation representatives who took part in communications with officials about the settlement.
The amendment adds that representatives of “certain plaintiff states” attended settlement meetings in March 2026, without identifying them.
The office of the Associate Attorney General is newly listed among the DOJ offices involved in the talks, alongside those of the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General.
The filing also rewords its account of how Live Nation’s representatives, including advisors Mike Davis and William Levi, approached the Antitrust Division between February and June 2025.
The June version said they had sought to open “settlement discussions” with the Division. The October version says they sought to open “a dialogue with Division leadership about the case, including settlement possibilities.”
The negotiation timeline now includes a formal written settlement proposal from Live Nation in October 2025, a month after its initial proposal. The DOJ countered in January 2026.
Two Ticketmaster product executives, Senior Vice President of Product Devon Cavanagh and former Chief Product Officer Taggart Matthiesen, have been added to the list of company representatives involved.
Live Nation maintains that its June disclosure “was complete and compliant” with the law.
It says it filed the amendment “out of an abundance of caution,” in light of an August 12 ruling in a separate DOJ antitrust case involving Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).
In that case, US District Judge P. Casey Pitts in California found that HPE had not disclosed some of its lobbying of federal officials. He rejected HPE’s argument that some of those contacts did not need to be disclosed because they were not about the settlement.
Pitts still approved the DOJ’s settlement allowing HPE’s USD $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks.
The DOJ sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster in May 2024, joined by attorneys general from dozens of states, in a case that threatened to break up the company.
Under the settlement, Live Nation agreed to give up its exclusive booking agreements at 13 amphitheaters, cap Ticketmaster’s service fees at its amphitheaters at 15% of face value, and set aside USD $280 million for state damages claims.
It would also extend by eight years the court-supervised conduct rules Live Nation has operated under since its 2010 merger with Ticketmaster.
A coalition of 33 states and the District of Columbia pressed on with the trial without the DOJ.
On April 15, a jury found that Ticketmaster had illegally monopolized primary ticketing at major US concert venues, and that Live Nation had done the same in large amphitheaters.
The states have since called for the court to order Live Nation to sell Ticketmaster.
Live Nation has asked the judge to throw out the verdict or order a new trial.
In July, 21 of the states sought the court’s permission to investigate how the DOJ settlement was negotiated, including communications involving the White House.
Their letter, led by Colorado, said that “public reporting and Defendants’ recent filing further suggest to some states that the United States’s acceptance of the Settlement may have been influenced by individuals outside of the Department of Justice and concerns other than restoring or increasing competition.”
Both the DOJ and Live Nation opposed the request.
On August 4, Judge Subramanian turned it down, but said the states could come back with “narrow and targeted” requests for information.
The states have since returned with new requests, which Live Nation opposed in early October as still too broad.
Rivals AEG and SeatGeek have also urged the judge to reject the settlement.
In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump told the DOJ to settle the case shortly after an Oval Office meeting with Rapino on February 27, days before the trial began.
According to the Journal, Trump had called that meeting to discuss the Kennedy Center.
The paper also reported that Trump briefly appeared at the March 5 meeting, a detail the amended filing now confirms.
A DOJ spokesperson told PBS NewsHour at the time: “The Journal’s account of how this resolution came together is in material respects categorically false. The department stands behind this settlement and the many lawyers who negotiated it.”
Live Nation EVP of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs Dan Wall told the Journal: “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.”
Live Nation‘s amended filing makes no reference to the Journal‘s report that Trump directed the DOJ to settle.
Judge Subramanian has yet to rule on the DOJ settlement, or on Live Nation’s bid to overturn the jury’s verdict.
If he approves the settlement, it will resolve the federal government’s claims on terms that leave Ticketmaster with Live Nation.
The states’ push for a Ticketmaster sale is proceeding separately, as part of their own case.
After the verdict in April, Live Nation said it remained confident that “the ultimate outcome of the States’ case will not be materially different than what is envisioned by the DOJ settlement.”Music Business Worldwide
