“Music was not a distraction from David’s work. The media attention became a distraction,” said a Goldman Sachs representative.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon‘s DJ hobby was less a serious career, and more an open invitation for “business techno” jokes. The high-level exec has apparently realized as much. He has not performed publicly in over a year on account of the pursuit distracting him from his work with the financial firm.
According to the Financial Times, Goldman Sachs representative Tony Fratto said that Solomon has not played an official gig since Lollapalooza 2022. “This is not news,” he told the outlet. “David hasn’t publicly DJed an event in well over a year, which we have confirmed multiple times in the past.”
Fratto continued: “Music was not a distraction from David’s work. The media attention became a distraction.”
Solomon, who performed under the alias DJ D-Sol, has said that he had played records for years before taking the position of CEO in 2018 per The Guardian. On his Spotify page — which boasts over 342,000 monthly listeners at the time of writing — he’s uploaded solo singles like “Don’t Stop,” collaborations with the likes of Sam Feldt, and a remix of Whitney Houston‘s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”
During the pandemic, Solomon received backlash for performing at Safe & Sound Hamptons, a drive-in concert from which video emerged of attendees disregarding social distancing guidelines. He has also reportedly garnered criticism from his fellow Goldman Sachs execs, who voiced concerns that the media attention was distracting him from his duties as CEO.
“If you can’t find a way to have passions and pursue passions and mix them into your professional life and personal life in some way shape or form, it’s just harder to have the energy to keep on doing this,” David Solomon had said in 2018. Only time will tell whether sidelining his pursuit of DJing will help or hinder his work-life balance.
