Scooter Braun blasts ex-Goldman Sachs partner who sued him in tweet
Scooter Braun took to Twitter on Thursday to blast a former business partner who sued him this week as nothing more than an “opportunist” looking to get paid.
“One day I woke up to find out that a guy who took $5 million from us years ago with zero results has now read a headline of our success and has shown up out of the blue to ask for more money,” Braun tweeted of ex-Goldman Sachs partner Peter Comisar.
“Got to love a good opportunist. Unfortunately we don’t scare easy. Wish him well.”
Braun’s tweet came one day after The Post exclusively reported on Comisar’s scathing lawsuit accusing the music manager behind stars like Justin Bieber of luring him into a dead-end job with empty promises about his ability to secure money from high-profile pals like Apple’s Jimmy Iovine and Hollywood’s David Geffen.
Comisar claims Braun “aggressively courted” away from his lucrative job at Guggenheim Securities to run a new venture capital company called Scope Capital Partners.
But Braun allegedly left Comisar high and dry when he failed to raise the necessary funds and then accepted money for similar investments from private equity giant Carlyle Capital through his Ithaca Holdings company, which he sold this year for $1 billion.
Braun, who is perhaps best known for his ugly public spat with Taylor Swift, also filed in court papers this week in Los Angeles state court, that he was seeking to move Comisar’s case to arbitration, where their differences could be duked out privately.
In filing for the move to arbitration, Braun’s lawyers echoed claims that Comisar is looking for a big payday.
The court papers accuse Comisar of a “money grab” in the wake of the $1 billion windfall Braun amassed in April for the sale of Ithaca Holdings to South Korean media giant, Hypbe.
Lawyers for Braun claim Comisar even sought to “derail” the Ithaca sale by threatening to “sue Braun in court” if he didn’t “cave” into his “extortionate demands,” that included a hefty payout.
They claimed the Wall Streeter “took” $5 million related to launch of Scope, plus a $3 million salary, without growing Scope’s business or raising the $250 million he was expected to raise for the venture.
“Comisar was unable to get a single investor to invest with Scope Capital Management,” the petition said, adding that Comisar spent his time and effort operating his own consultancy business instead.
In response to Braun’s allegation’s Comisar’s attorney Joel Kozberg of Kozberg & Bodell told The Post on Thursday that “Mr. Braun has a history of trying to blame others for his own failings. It doesn’t surprise us that he does so here.”
“Mr. Comisar has had a 30 year career operating under a code of honesty, the highest ethical standards, and unyielding commitment and support for his clients that has never before been questioned,” he said, adding that Braun’s claims will be proven “false.”
Kozberg’s lawsuit blames Braun for having “abandoned” Scope after a year of failing to get it up and running. Comisar left in 2018, one year after signing a contract to be paid $3 million a year over three years.
“Not one of Braun’s contacts agreed to invest any amount, much less the hundreds of millions Braun had promised,” the lawsuit claimed. “The truth was that Braun’s relations valued him as someone to socialize with, but to whom they would never entrust their millions.”
But the Hollywood manager behind stars like Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato and Carly Rae Jepsen, said his commitment to the fund was contingent on Comisar having “secured at least $250 million in investment commitments from investors.”
Braun’s legal team helmed by Larry Stein of Russ August & Kabbat said court papers: “While Braun lived up to his end of the bargain and funded Scope to the tune of $5.2 million … Comisar was unable to secure a single investor commitment” and positioned their legal filing as “an attempt by a failure and opportunist to make a quick buck off someone else’s hard work.”
The next chapter in the Braun-Comisar saga will either be played out in arbitration or in the court room once the case gets a judge.
