Like many of you, the recent break was a good time to have a go at the ever-growing tsundoku of unread books around the house. In between spending time with JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy and Michael Lewis' The Undoing Project, there was a fascinating book called Dark Money by New Yorker investigative reporter Jane Mayer.
Dark Money looks at how various right-wing American billionaires have used their bundles of cash to fund a range of anti-government initiatives and projects. As you'd expect from their involvement in these matters, the Koch brothers are the stars of Mayer's show, but there was also a few references in there to businessman Philip Anschutz.
Anschutz started out making his fortune from oil before expanding into land, railroads, telecommunications, sports (he's one of the founders of Major League Soccer in the US) and entertainment. Never one to court the press, the Kansas native ended up in Dark Money because he's one of many rich white men in the Koch donor network whose cash helps to finance a bewildering number of right-wing groups and causes.
This month, though, it was his entertainment interests which landed the billionaire in the glare of publicity. Aside from financing films such as The Chronicles of Narnia and Ray, Anschutz is the main man behind AEG, the second biggest music promoter in the world behind Live Nation.
The company owns and operates a rake of festivals, venues and promoters worldwide and this portfolio includes Goldenvoice, the company behind the hugely successful Coachella festival in California. The day after this year’s Coachella sold out, there was a spate of reports linking Anschutz and his foundation with financial support for various anti-LGBTQ and climate-change denial groups.
Anschutz moved quickly to reject the anti-gay charges, labeling them as "garbage", though there has been no comment to date about the climate-change allegations. It didn't stop the story gaining traction and some Coachella-bound acts raised questions about Anschutz on social media.
It’s unlikely if any of these acts will have a change of mind about playing the festival because of Anschutz. After all, the deposits have already been banked and the contracts signed.
It’s also unlikely that many audience members will return their tickets with a “thanks but no thanks” because of these reports about what Anschutz does with his money when he’s not paying for Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar and Radiohead to play in the Cali sun.
However, given the launch of the Trump era in Washington DC next week and the new politics which are about to unfold as a result, this Coachella story could well be the start of something very interesting.
There are many ways to throw political shapes, and due diligence of the sort which Anschutz faced in the past week is one example of this new kind of activism. The billionaire is free to spend his cash wherever he wants – but the people who contribute to his fortune are also free to make some points about where that money goes.
The involvement of a right-wing business leader such as Anschutz in live music and other entertainment ventures means that he’s relying on the spending power of people who are often supporters of the political alliances and allegiances which he himself wants to destroy or defeat.
While it might not necessarily mean a loss of revenue for Anschutz – AEG are so embedded in the live business that it’s hard to avoid them – the effect of these stories on the company’s reputation is another matter.
