If he did I imagine they would have one hell of a hissy fit over it. Imagine a hosting company just giving out root access so easily?
You'd be surprised... (not related to crypto), but i've "talked my way" into reclaiming servers for some companies in the past (i'd say even within the past few years).... None was for nefarious reasons, just getting them ownership of their sites... I bet this still happens, even on some of the larger hosting providers... the verification they ask for is not that strict (or at least it wasn't) in many cases.