KEY POINTS
- Taylor Swift was reportedly close to signing a $100 million partnership deal with FTX
- But she did her due diligence and eventually asked, “Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?”
- Swift’s partnership deal with FTX did not push through
Tech billionaire Elon Musk was “not surprised” when Adam Moskowitz, FTX victims’ lawyer, said he was impressed by American singer/songwriter Taylor Swift for avoiding a partnership with the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange after exercising due diligence and therefore dodging the legal trouble other celebrity endorsers are now faced with.
The lawsuit in question was filed against celebrities who purportedly endorsed or promoted FTX, including NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal who was finally served in the suit over the weekend after allegedly hiding for months.
Taylor could have been in the same legal predicament as these figures since she was reportedly close to signing a $100 million sponsorship deal with FTX months before its epic collapse and filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. However, the partnership fell through.
According to the lawyer, who guested in an episode of the popular podcast “The Scoop” to discuss the $5 billion class action lawsuit, the singer actually exercised due diligence unlike O’Neal and other celebrities involved in the case like Stephen Curry and Tom Brady.
“The one person I found that did that was Taylor Swift,” Moskowitz said.
“In our discovery, Taylor Swift actually asked them, ‘Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities,'” the lawyer added.
Interestingly, Musk commented in a tweet about what Moskowitz said about Taylor, saying he was “not surprised” by the singer’s decision not to ink the deal because she is “smart” and her father is a “well-regarded investment banker.”
I’m not surprised. Taylor is smart and her father is a well-regarded investment banker.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2023
The singer’s father, Scott Swift, used to work as an investment banker and stockbroker at Merill Lynch and later purchased a 3% stake (worth around $300,000) in the independent label Big Machine Records, the label that first signed Taylor.
Moskowitz is currently leading multiple class-action lawsuits against endorsers and promoters of major cryptocurrency companies, including Voyager Digital and FTX.
In March, his firm filed a class-action lawsuit against social media influencers and YouTubers who promoted Binance.
Moskowitz said he was expecting celebrities and influencers to be more careful about promoting crypto companies in the future.
“I mean, why would you possibly promote cryptocurrency if it may be an unregistered security? That’s just baffling to me,” the lawyer said in the podcast
“There’s a long list of influencers that promoted this. But you know, you’ve got to be realistic. I mean, I can’t go after 1,000 right now. So you go after the largest ones,” he added.
