Taylor Swift sidestepped the FTX disaster by asking one simple question when approached by the disgraced crypto exchange about a $100 million sponsorship deal: ‘Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?’
The revelation came from attorney Adam Moskowitz during an appearance on The Scoop podcast with David Chaparro.
‘The one person I found that did that was Taylor Swift. In our discovery, Taylor Swift actually asked them, ‘Can you tell me that these are not unregistered securities?” Moskowitz said in an interview about his class action lawsuit against FTX.
It was reported shortly after FTX’s collapse that Swift came close to inking a $100 million sponsorship deal with the company.
On Twitter, Elon Musk responded to the story by tweeting that he wasn’t ‘surprised’ by the news adding: ‘Taylor is smart and her father is a well-regarded investment banker.’
Taylor Swift was one of the few celebrities to sidestep becoming involved with doomed crypto-exchange FTX
Swift’s father, Scott, shown here with his daughter, worked for Merrill Lynch in various roles for more than 30 years, including as a stock broker and investment banker
Swift’s father, Scott, worked for Merrill Lynch in various roles for more than 30 years, including as a stock broker and investment banker.
When the family relocated to Hendersonville, Tennessee, from Pennsylvania to aid the singer’s career, he transferred to the company’s Nashville office.
‘I have an excellent father, his strength is making me stronger,’ Swift sang on her track The Best Day.
Moskowitz is representing several plaintiffs in a $5 billion lawsuit against celebrities that endorsed FTX such as Seinfeld co-creator Larry David as well as NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal and Patriots hero Tom Brady.
Before its failure, FTX was known to use high-profile Hollywood and sports celebrities to promote its products.
Swift began talks with FTX representatives in late 2021 about the company possibly sponsoring her tour, the Financial Times reported last year.
Among the topics for discussion was the idea of selling concert tickets for her Eras Tour as NFTs. An FTX staffer told the FT: ‘No one really like the deal’ because it was ‘too expensive from the beginning.’
‘[The cost of the deal] was very high… really f***ing high. That’s front of the soccer jersey level prices,’ one former executive said.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of crypto exchange FXT, was supposedly pursuing a massive sponsorship deal with Taylor Swift before the company collapsed
Bankman-Fried was said to be adamant in pushing the deal, which would have been worth $100 million for Swift over three years, even as his top advisors urged him to reconsider
Among those actively seeking the deal were FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and senior executive Claire Watanabe.
A security is an asset that can be traded such as a stock or bond. Securities traded in the United States are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The SEC said in December that FTX’s cryptocurrency was security but that it had not been properly registered.
Earlier this week, celebrities at the center of the class action lawsuit said the case should be dismissed.
The suit, filed in Miami, alleges that FTX yield-bearing accounts were unregistered securities that were unlawfully sold in the United States, which required the promoters to disclose the compensation they received.
The lawsuit seeks damages from Bankman-Fried alongside several celebrities who promoted FTX including David, the creator of TV shows Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
It also seeks damages from a National Basketball Association team that promoted FTX, the Golden State Warriors.
The celebrities and the Warriors said in court papers filed last Friday that they had never pitched the accounts at issue in the case and did not cause the investors’ losses.
Tom Brady and now ex-wife Gisele Bundchen appeared in an FTX commercial last year. They’re named in a class action lawsuit which alleges the firm’s collapse has cost consumers $11 billion
They said that under the investors’ theory, ‘actors in any brokerage ad would be liable for selling any security that an individual user later purchased using the brokerage’s services.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ the celebrities said.
A lawyer for the investors did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
David starred in a commercial for FTX that aired during the 2022 Super Bowl in which he portrayed fictional characters dismissing important innovations throughout history and ended with the message ‘Don’t Miss Out on Crypto.’
Bankman-Fried argued in court papers that the case against him should be paused while he fights criminal charges in New York. The investors did not oppose the request, he said.
Prosecutors have charged Bankman-Fried, 31, with stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer funds to plug losses at Alameda Research, and making tens of millions of dollars in illegal political donations to buy influence in Washington, D.C. He has pleaded not guilty.
‘Part of the scheme employed by the FTX Entities involved utilizing some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment—like these Defendants—to raise funds and drive American consumers to invest … pouring billions of dollars into the deceptive FTX platform to keep the whole scheme afloat,’ one section of the lawsuit reads.
Src: dailymail.co.uk
