NEW YORK (AP) — Live Nation Entertainment’s longtime chief executive was the star witness at a New York antitrust trial Thursday, defending the dominant position his company has taken over the last two decades as a lawyer for nearly three dozen states tried to portray the concert giant as greedy and abusive to customers.

Michael Rapino, who has led the company since it was formed 21 years ago, testified at the trial resulting from the lawsuit the U.S. Justice Department brought two years ago against Live Nation and its ticketing subsidiary, Ticketmaster.

“I’m very proud,” Rapino said, speaking of the way he believed his company had taken a fragmented industry over 20 years ago and organized it to better serve artists and fans in a manner that other companies now try to emulate. In 2010, Live Nation merged with Ticketmaster.

The federal government settled its role in the case last week, winning concessions from Live Nation that are meant to increase competition and ideally lower ticket prices for concertgoers. Six states have joined the federal government in settling. But 33 states and the District of Columbia are continuing the court fight.

Attorney Jeffrey Kessler, representing the states, questioned Rapino throughout the day as he tried to show the company was shutting out competitors and driving up prices for fans.

Live Nation CEO says profits hard to find in concert industry

Rapino portrayed the concert promotion and ticketing industry as so competitive with such narrow profit margins that Wall Street was skeptical that the public company could produce steady growth and profits. He said 40 amphitheaters it owns or controls would lose $150 million annually if Live Nation couldn’t profit from the sale of food and beverages, parking and other amenity products such as lawn chairs.

At one point, Kessler brought up 2022 messages in which one of Live Nation’s key ticketing employees wrote to another employee on the company’s private messaging system that some customers were “so stupid” and boasted of “robbing them blind, baby” on the sale of the amenities, including access to VIP areas.

Rapino called the language “disgusting” and “not the way we operate” and said he just learned about it last week and planned “to deal with it this week.”

As Kessler pressed as to whether the employee would be disciplined, Rapino said his company tends “to give employees a break” and added that “I heard he’s apologized.”

Live Nation has said that the company only learned of the employee’s private messages last week when they were made public in the litigation. Its lawyers have described the conversation as “off-the-cuff banter, not policy” between two employees who are personal friends.