Scooter Braun Retires From Artist Management

Scooter Braun, the U.S. music industry professional who engineered the unthinkable by creating a persona almost as famous as the artists he managed, and found himself at the wrong-end of a very-public dispute with Taylor Swift, is pivoting away his decades-long career.

Following months of scuttlebutt, Braun has retired from management and will focus on leading HYBE America as CEO.

Braun isn’t your regular behind-the-scenes manager. Through SB Projects, Braun guided the likes of Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Usher and Demi Lovato, and, briefly, Australia’s own The Kid LAROI. His Instagram has attracted more than 3.7 million followers. 

“23 years,” he writes in a social post. “That’s how long I have been a music manager. 23 years ago, a 19-year-old kid started managing an artist named Cato in Atlanta, GA, and my journey began. Along the way I have had so many experiences I could never have dreamt of. I have been blessed to have had a Forrest Gump-like life while witnessing and taking part in the journeys of some of the most extraordinarily talented people the world has ever seen. I’m constantly pinching myself and asking, ‘how did I get here?’ And after 23 years, this chapter as a music manager has come to an end.”

He continues, “It’s a strange feeling because I think I have wanted this for a while, but I was truly afraid to answer the question ‘who would I be without them?’” Braun added. “I was really just 19 years old when I started. So for my entire adult life I played the role of an artist manager on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And for 20 years I loved it. It’s all I had known. But as my children got older, and my personal Iife took some hits, I came to the realization that my kids were three superstars I wasn’t willing to lose. The sacrifices I was once willing to make I could no longer justify. It was time to step into a new role.”

Tongues began wagging last August when word emerged that Braun was seeking new representation for his artists.

Braun wore the black hat for Swifties everywhere when, in 2019, his Ithaca Holdings acquired the master rights to Taylor Swift’s first six albums, in a deal valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Swift said she was “sad and grossed out” by the sale and remarked at the time, “never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter.” What TayTay did next was nothing short of a game-changer; she set about re-recording those albums as Taylor’s Versions, four of which have rolled out.

In January 2023, Braun became the sole-CEO of HYBE America, the U.S. affiliate of the K-pop powerhouse, home to BTS. Scooter’s Ithaca Holdings merged with HYBE in April 2021, giving the South Korean company a 100% stake in Ithaca and its assets.