executive

Edison International boosted the pay of its top executives last year despite their responsibility for the safety of the company’s power lines before the devastating Eaton fire, which destroyed a wide swath of Altadena and killed 19 people.

Although the company cut cash bonuses for its senior executives, citing the wildfires, their overall compensation went up substantially as the utility’s profit soared in 2025.

Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of the parent company of Southern California Edison, received $16.6 million in cash, stock and other compensation last year, up 20% from 2024, according to a new company filing.

Steven Powell, president of Southern California Edison, received compensation totaling $6.5 million last year, up from $3.9 million in 2024 — a jump of more than 65%.

The utility’s transmission equipment is suspected of igniting two wildfires on Jan. 7, 2025, including the Eaton fire, which left thousands of families homeless.

The Times earlier detailed how Edison fell behind in performing maintenance on its aging transmission lines — work that it had told state utility regulators was needed. County prosecutors are investigating whether Edison should be criminally charged for its actions before the fire.

The government investigation into the cause of the fire has not been released and Edison has denied that it acted negligently. Pizarro has said a leading theory is that a century-old transmission line, which the company had not used for 50 years, may have briefly reenergized, igniting the fire.

A state law championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 protects utilities from paying for the damage due to fires sparked by their equipment. When it passed, Newsom touted the law’s requirement that utilities must tie executive compensation to their safety record, saying it would keep them accountable.

The law said that a utility “may” consider tying 100% of executive bonuses to safety performance and “denying all incentive compensation in the event the electrical corporation causes a catastrophic wildfire that results in one or more fatalities.”

Edison said in the new filing that the company’s board members who determine executive compensation decided to decrease the cash bonuses of Pizarro, Powell and Jill Anderson, the utility’s chief operating officer, because of the 2025 wildfires.

Pizarro’s cash bonus was cut by more than $1 million while Powell’s was trimmed by $442,000, according to the filing. Anderson lost out on $244,000.

The company, based in Rosemead, said its decision to cut the three executives’ cash bonuses “was not a reflection of the performance of the company or these executives.”

Despite those cuts, the executives’ total pay of salary, bonuses, stock and other compensation rose, according to the filing. That’s because Edison ties most executive compensation not to safety, but to the company’s financial performance.

And last year, Edison’s profit jumped more than 200% — from $1.3 billion in 2024 to $4.5 billion — despite the Eaton disaster.

The profit increase resulted from the protections from wildfire damage provided to Edison by the 2019 law, as well as a 13% hike in customer electricity rates in October.

The utility attributed the higher electric bills to several increases that it successfully lobbied the California Public Utilities Commission to approve. All five members of the commission were appointed by Newsom.

Scott Johnson, an Edison spokesman, said Tuesday that Pizarro and other company executives holding stock took a financial hit after the fires when the price plummeted.

Before the January fires, Edison International’s stock price was about $80. It fell to $50 the next month. It has recovered much of its value, closing on Tuesday at $72.92.

Edison is facing hundreds of lawsuits by victims of the fire. The suits claim it acted negligently, including by failing to remove the old, dormant transmission line in Eaton Canyon.

The lawsuits also blame Edison for not preventatively shutting down its transmission lines Jan. 7, 2025, despite the dangerous Santa Ana winds.

Pizarro has said the winds didn’t meet the company’s threshold in place at the time for turning off those high-voltage wires.

“Our deepest sympathies remain with all those affected, and this loss reinforces our commitment to public safety and wildfire risk mitigation,” Pizarro and Peter Taylor, chairman of the parent company’s board, wrote in a letter to shareholders that was released with the details on executive compensation.

The two executives added that the company’s “long-term objective remains unchanged: to significantly reduce wildfire risk while improving safety, reliability and affordability of electric service.”

Edison is now offering to compensate Eaton fire victims, including those who lost their homes, family members, businesses and apartments. The offer requires the victims to give up their right to sue the utility. Many survivors say the utility’s offer falls short of what they lost.

Pizarro and Taylor wrote that as of March 4, more than 2,500 claims had been submitted through the program. So far, Edison has extended offers to roughly 600 victims submitting claims and made payments totaling $31 million to 212 of those people, they wrote.

The utility also has begun settling claims of property insurers that covered Altadena homes that were destroyed or damaged, paying out hundreds of millions of dollars. The settlements will help cover the insurance companies’ losses.

Edison has told its shareholders that it expects most or all of those payments to victims and insurers to be covered by a $21-billion state wildfire fund that Newsom and lawmakers created as part of Assembly Bill 1054, which became law in 2019.

Critics say the law went too far, allowing a utility to allegedly spark a deadly wildfire without financial consequences to the company or its executives.

“The predictable outcome of continuing to protect shareholders and executives from the consequences of their own negligence is not theoretical. It is observable. More catastrophic fires,” Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, wrote in an email to state wildfire fund administrators this year.

Johnson responded, saying,”Our motivation to prevent fires and any incidents is to be good neighbors and provide affordable and resilient energy. There is nothing more important than safety.”

Taylor was on the board committee that approved the compensation package for Pizarro and other top executives. For his work chairing the board, Taylor received cash and stock compensation of more than $500,000.

Johnson said Taylor’s compensation was based on “typical board chair pay” at other utilities.

The new filing said Pizarro’s total compensation of $16.6 million was 75 times the median Edison employee’s total compensation of $220,000.

The present value of Pizarro’s pension is more than $19 million, the report said.

The company is facing a challenge from one of its shareholders — John Chevedden of Redondo Beach, according to the filing.

Chevedden is asking the company’s shareholders to vote to approve his proposal that would require Pizarro and other Edison executives to hold at least 25% of the stock they had received as compensation until they reach retirement age.

He said that requiring utility executives to hold a significant portion of their stock until retirement would focus their efforts on the company’s long-term success.

Chevedden pointed to “unfavorable news reports,” including the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuits against Edison for the Eaton fire and 2022 Fairview blaze, which killed two people in Riverside County.

Edison’s board urged shareholders to vote against Chevedden’s proposal before the company’s annual meeting April 23.

The board said the company already had guidelines that “closely align the interests of officers with the long-term interests of our shareholders.”

The tumult continues at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as the National Symphony Orchestra’s executive director, Jean Davidson, steps down from her role to become executive director and chief executive of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Davidson will assume her new position May 4, the Wallis announced Friday.

Davidson is not new to L.A., having served as the president and CEO of the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Music Center from 2015 to 2023. She left the Master Chorale for the NSO in Washington, D.C., where she worked for two years until President Trump began his controversial takeover of the Kennedy Center, firing its board and installing himself as chairman. Major artist defections ensued, culminating with a board vote to rename the center the Trump Kennedy Center in December and February’s surprise announcement that the center would close for two years for renovations, beginning July 4.

“I’ve learned a lot in the last three years, and I think it’s no secret that it’s been a hard year,” Davidson told The Times, adding that the politicization of the Kennedy Center was a factor in her decision-making. “I had intended to stay through the [orchestra’s] 100th anniversary in 2031, but found it more and more difficult to achieve the goals that we had set out to achieve given the external forces that are at work that are just so far beyond my control.”

It seemed like “I had reached a natural ending point,” she said.

With the imminent closure of the Kennedy Center, speculation has swirled around the NSO’s future, especially in light of the Washington National Opera’s decision in January to cut ties with the storied venue, which has been its home since 1971. The Kennedy Center’s Trump-appointed leadership, however, made it clear that it intended to support the NSO in the long term, and the orchestra’s board chair assured musicians that the orchestra and its staff would remain intact.

Davidson said the NSO is in the process of identifying venues for the next two years, and that the orchestra has been told by the Kennedy Center that its financial support is not in question.

“Many venue operators in the D.C. area have been very generously reaching out to us, asking how they can help,” she said. “Of course, we plan our seasons years in advance, and so next season was already planned. We already have conductors and soloists and all of that, and so it’s a bit of a jigsaw puzzle aligning our existing programming and obligations to those artists with venues that are appropriate for those programs.”

It will take several more weeks to come up with a cohesive plan and it will probably include several venues, “but we will have a season,” Davidson said. “And we hope that everybody will come.”

In many ways, Davidson said, the NSO is stronger than it has been in quite some time. During her tenure, Davidson helped reboot the orchestra’s international and domestic touring, which includes upcoming shows at New York’s Carnegie Hall in May and at the Hollywood Bowl in August. The orchestra also extended acclaimed music director Gianandrea Noseda’s contract through 2031.

“The orchestra is just playing at such a high level and they really have never sounded so good,” said Davidson, echoing what notable critics have also been saying. “We’re still welcoming many new players after our audition process, and I think that’s all very positive for the NSO.”

Davidson knows that leaving her role will be difficult for the orchestra, but she believes it will emerge stronger.

“I care deeply about the NSO and I am so proud of everything that we’ve accomplished together. I think the world of Gianandrea, of [principal conductor] Steven Reineke, our musicians, our staff and board — it’s a great community of people,” said Davidson.

Davidson also believes that the upcoming renovations to the Kennedy Center will ultimately result in a better experience for audiences and artists. She just wishes there had been much more advance notice.

“Usually orchestras will plan for being out of their hall years in advance, and we only have months to do that, so it is causing a bit of strain,” she said. “I think the most important thing is that our audiences and donors continue to support the NSO during this transition period.”

Davidson will now embark on her own transition as she moves from D.C. to L.A., rejoining her husband who has stayed in the area as a music professor at UC Irvine.

“This is an opportunity that’s been on my bucket list of things that I want to do in my life and it seems like the right time,” said Davidson of her new role at the Wallis in Beverly Hills.

Compared with the NSO, the Wallis is practically brand new, having opened in 2013.

Davidson is excited that there is lots of room for growth, and that the Wallis has evolved into one of the region’s most exciting multidisciplinary performing arts presenters and home base to a variety of local arts groups.

“I think anytime you’re starting a new role, there’s a lot of learning that needs to occur,” Davidson said. “And I’m not somebody that is prone to walking in with a big vision that’s going to suddenly change course. I think they’ve been doing a lot of great work and so I’m looking forward to collaborating with the team that’s there — to learn and to create a shared vision for the future.”

It’s an exciting time to be in Los Angeles, Davidson said.

“The last decade or so has seen a lot of growth in the art sector, and there are so many talented artists and organizations in L.A. that need a place to perform.”

After years of ticketing complaints and frustrations, the trial for the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation is officially underway.

As part of its case, the DOJ has accused Live Nation of requiring artists to use its promotional services when they play a Live Nation-owned venue. Because so many venues are owned by the company, the government claims Live Nation’s alleged practices are anti-competitive.

Jury selection began Monday in a New York federal court and opening statements are expected Tuesday for the complaint first filed in 2024. Since then, the antitrust case against the Beverly Hills-based company has been streamlined — examining whether Live Nation uses illegal anti-competitive practices and whether the company and Ticketmaster should be broken up.

The legal proceeding is expected to last around a month, with Judge Arun Subramanian, who also presided over Sean Combs’ sentencing last year, at the helm.

Live Nation’s presidents Michael Rapino and Joe Berchtold, executives from competing companies like Anschutz Entertainment Group and Irving Azoff, the former Ticketmaster CEO, are expected to testify. Musicians like Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons and entertainer Kid Rock could also take the stand.

Key claims in the lawsuit

The original lawsuit led by a cadre of interested parties including the federal government, 39 states and the District of Columbia alleged that Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster have monopolies in various aspects of the live music industry, such as concert promotion, venue operations, artist management and ticketing services.

The lawsuit states that Live Nation manages over 400 artists and controls more than 265 venues in North America. Ticketmaster simultaneously controls around 80% of the primary ticket marketplace and is also increasing its involvement in the resale market.

Many of the large monopoly claims were thrown out during a pretrial hearing with Judge Subramanian last month, including an allegation that Live Nation’s industry power raises ticket prices and harms consumers.

The claim with arguably the greatest potential impact centers on whether Live Nation should own Ticketmaster. The two companies merged in 2010, a move that has frequently been considered controversial. Beyond the ownership of Ticketmaster, the DOJ claims Live Nation forces venues to sign exclusive contracts with Ticketmaster, barring the inclusion of other ticket vendors.

“For over a decade, Ticketmaster and Live Nation have promised reform, but meaningful competition has remained out of reach. The industry now stands at an inflection point: restore a competitive marketplace that supports innovation, or allow the status quo to continue narrowing options for American consumers,” Dustin Brighton of the Coalition for Ticket Fairness said in a statement.

“Yet the very competitors that could check this monopoly and restore balance are routinely boxed out by restrictive practices that limit innovation and reduce consumer options,” Brighton added.

Live Nation did not respond to a request for comment. When the complaint was first filed, the company called the claims “baseless.”

“Calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a PR win for the DOJ in the short term, but it will lose in court because it ignores the basic economics of live entertainment,” wrote Live Nation in a previous statement.

Next steps after the trial

If Live Nation loses the trial, the judge will decide how the company should be restructured, which could mean selling Ticketmaster to a competitor. Live Nation maintains the right to appeal such a decision, if it materializes, and take the matter to a higher court.

“If the court finds Live Nation violated the law, monetary penalties and behavioral commitments alone will not be sufficient,” Stephen Parker, executive director of the Independent Venue Association, said in a statement.

“The relief must be proportionate to the harm,” Parker added, “and that means structural separation of primary ticketing, resale ticketing, venue operation, national tours, advertising/sponsorship, and artist management must be seriously considered.”

Beyond the current DOJ trial, Live Nation is also facing a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission and a handful of class action lawsuits from groups of concertgoers.