Ben Cesario

They hired some people who were very close to the Trump administration to advocate for them in Washington.

It's a guy named Rick Grenell, who Trump appointed to run the Kennedy Center and then Live Nation put on their board of directors.

Live Nation also hired Kellyanne Conway, who had worked in the first Trump administration, to talk to people high up at the Justice Department.

And so all of that is going on mostly hidden from view.

Well, I think Live Nation certainly looked at this as an existential threat to them, right?

Like, the government wanted their company to be broken up, and so they were doing everything they could to protect that.

They were developing their case in court, but they were also trying to settle it.

And that's basically what happens.

Just a week into the trial, when the government seems to be holding a lot of leverage,

It's revealed that the Justice Department did settle with Live Nation.

And there was a lot of drama in the courtroom when this happened because it seemed to take everyone by surprise.

Even the Justice Department's litigators in the courtroom said they didn't know about this.

And the judge was very angry.

He scolded both Live Nation and the Justice Department.

And that made for quite a moment in the courtroom.

We do not, and there's still a lot of questions about exactly how this settlement came together.

But for Live Nation, it was a pretty good deal.

I mean, first of all, they avoided getting split up, right?

That was their biggest concern going into this.

They didn't want the concert part of Live Nation