Texas First Family - Audrey Abbott, Greg Abbott and Cecilia Abbott - Governor Abbott Facebook Photo

Abbott Daughter Returning to Music Business
after Timely Exit from Texas Rangers Employ

Capitol Inside
April 6, 2021

Governor Greg Abbott's daughter left a job with the Texas Rangers last week to go work in the Los Angeles area for a major international music company that's owned in part by a Chinese corporation that Donald Trump sought to blacklist as a potential threat to national security.

The Dallas Morning News reported on Monday that Audrey Abbott joined the Rangers staff in June as an events planner. Abbott's office told the paper that the governor's daughter has taken a position in the Los Angeles area with the Universal Music Group.

The governor's spokesperson Renae Eze denied any ties between the younger Abbott's exit from the pro baseball club and the furor that's erupted over the decision by Major League Baseball to move the all-star game out of Atlanta as a result of the new voter restriction law in Georgia. Abbott made a scene at the Rangers home opener on Monday when he failed to show up after agreeing last week to toss out the ceremonial first pitch at brand new Globe Life Field.

It isn't clear if Abbott's daughter had coordinated her famous father's appearance at the game against the Toronto Blue Jays when she was still a Rangers employee. The governor told Rangers officials that he would no longer participate in any MLB events in retaliation for its opposition to the voter limitation legislation that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed into law late last month. Abbott and other Republicans in Texas have been pushing their own version of election integrity during the current regular session based on false claims of rampant voter fraud. American Airlines, Dell Technologies and a long list of other major Texas corporations have criticized the measure that GOP leaders and lawmakers in Austin have planned to pass.

The gubernatorial balk and boycott has robbed Abbott of the opportunity to see his child's handiwork as a Rangers employee who was involved in guest services, building security, emergency preparedness and crowd control according to her LinkedIn page. Her job description with the ball club included the implementation of health and safety protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at Globe Life Field.

Audrey Abbott's role in the management of the coronavirus defense was all the more significant when considering that the game that featured her dad as a disgruntled no-show was the first major sporting event in the U.S. in more than a year in a venue with no limitations on capacity. More than 38,000 people turned out for the team's first regular season game in their new park.

But the governor's daughter had a variety of internships in the entertainment industry while attending the University of Southern California. She received a bachelor's degree from USC in music industry management. So it's back to the West Coast for the first Texas daughter.

UMG - the world's largest company of its kind - has its corporate headquarters in the Netherlands with Santa Monica as its operational base. Universal Music Group was conceived in 1934 as a new American branch for London-based Decca Records. UMG had been a division of Universal Studios until its acquisition in 2006 by the French media conglomerate Vivende.

Tencent bought 10 percent of Universal Music Group early last year before picking up an additional 10 percent in January. Tencent is a multinational holding company that has subsidiaries that specialize in video games, social media, smart phones, payment apps and music.

Trump was no fan of Tencent during his final year as president - targeting the company in an executive order in August that imposed a 45-day moratorim on transactions between American customers and the social messaging app WeChat. Tencent, which owns the app, took a $35 billion hit in financial worth as a direct consequence of the Trump edict that was based on concerns about data theft and manipulation by communists who control Bejing where the company has its headquaters.

The Trump White House sent Tencent stock into another plunge on the day after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January when it got out the word that it was considering adding the firm to a list of Chinese military companies that are subject to U.S. investment and transaction bans. But Trump backed off the threat a week later amid a massive backlash from the gaming industry in the U.S.