Ashton Kutcher will tell you to take a closer look at some emerging companies… but what he won’t tell you, is that he is invested in those companies.
Kutcher recently served as a guest editor for an online version of Details magazine. Apparently, more than a dozen of the companies featured in the issue, including Foursquare, Flipboard and Airbnb, are also companies in which Kutcher has invested– and that wasn’t disclosed.
Besides being ethically questionable, it could also get Kutcher in trouble with federal authorities, according to the New York Times.
Richard Cleland, assistant director of the division of advertising practices at the Federal Trade Commission, said to the New York Times, “If you’re out there promoting individual products that you have a specific investment in, it needs to be disclosed. If you have a significant economic investment that is not otherwise apparent, that may potentially affect the credibility of your endorsement, and I see that as a potential problem.”
So what could happen to America’s favorite pretty boy? He could face some tough questions from the Feds and find himself wishing this was just one long episode of “Punk’d.”
