Do we like Lee Soo-man?
Our score: 6 out of 10. No harmful words or company found, plus real donations and honours, but the tax and offshore allegations are unresolved and the record is thin on how he treats people.
Lee Soo-man is the bloke who built the K-pop factory. He founded SM Entertainment, the company behind a generation of idol groups, and was inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame in 2025 as a pioneer of the global music industry. In 2023 he left SM after a bitter fight and sold his shares to HYBE, agreeing not to produce music in Korea for three years.
His name has been dragged through a couple of money stoushes. In 2021, Newstapa reported from the Pandora Papers leak that he had allegedly set up Hong Kong shell companies to hide wealth; SM denied it, said his father set the firms up with his own assets, and said earlier probes had cleared him. In 2023 his nephew, then SM's co-CEO, alleged in a video that a Hong Kong company was set up for tax evasion. The article we read carried no reply from Lee or SM.
The latest chapter went his way, sort of. In August 2026 the Seoul Administrative Court cancelled about 12.8 billion won in extra tax assessed on SM over payments to Lee, and he joined the case on SM's side. The court agreed he was overpaid, but said the tax office hadn't proved the fair market value of his producing services. So it's a win on a technicality, not a clean bill of health.
On the harm check, the cupboard is bare in a good way. We found no remarks from him about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or climate, and no slide into conspiracy theories. His public talk is about AI and creativity; he has said AI chatbots could become humankind’s “best friend and lover” and also urged lawmakers to protect creators from copyright risks. His new groups are produced with Yoo Young-jin, a former SM producer, and nothing in that company raised a flag. Honestly, the record is thin rather than glowing.
The comeback is the bit everyone's watching. A2O Entertainment opened a Gangnam office, ran its first open audition in March, and then debuted A2O Soul and A2O Lite together in October, leaning hard on AI and fan-chat tech. He's also keynoting a K-culture and tech forum, where he is billed as the man who shaped the K-pop production system.
On the good side, in 2014 he gave 500 million won personally, with SM adding another 500 million, to Red Cross relief for Sewol ferry victims' families. The Asian Hall of Fame honour in November 2025 recognised his role in taking K-pop to the US. That's real, if not exactly a lifetime of public campaigning for others.