Adam Neumann, Trying Stand-Up Comedy On for Size, Is Attempting to Buy Back WeWork

Want to hear a joke? Guy started a company—let’s call it WeWork—and raised an insane amount of money, valuing it a colossal $47 billion. While running the company, he reportedly did things like:

Smoked so much pot on the corporate jet that the crew had to put on oxygen masks in order to breatheThrew company retreats called “Summer Camp” where, on at least one occasion, he took “psychedelic mushrooms on the first night of camp” and carried around “a water gun filled with vodka”Laid off employees to cut costs and then immediately had a member of Run-DMC enter the room to entertain the remaining staff, who were treated to tequila shots and toastsEmpowered his wife to fire people within minutes of meeting them because she “didn’t like their energy“Trademarked the word We, and made the company pay him $5.9 million to license it*Borrowed money from the company as it paid him rentTold people that, while he once had ambitions to become the prime minister of Israel, his new plan was to be president of the world, as well as the world’s first trillionaireOversaw massive lossesWas in charge when the company was forced to delay its IPO after facing “intense scrutiny of its finances and leadership,” including “concerns about its path to profitability and its leader”Watched its valuation go from $47 billion to $8 billionWas paid $1.7 billion to go away, after near-destroying the companyThen, five years later, after the company files for bankruptcy, he attempts to buy it back on the cheap. Pretty funny, right? Except, it’s not actually a joke, it’s what WeWork cofounder Adam Neumann is literally trying to do.

Per Dealbook:

Adam Neumann shot to fame by turning WeWork into a cultural and business phenomenon, before being ousted from the work space operator in dramatic fashion. But for the past several months, he has been trying to buy the now bankrupt business—with the help of the hedge fund mogul Dan Loeb, DealBook is the first to report. Neumann’s new real estate company Flow Global is pushing WeWork to consider its takeover approach, according to a letter his lawyers sent to WeWork’s advisers on Monday.

Flow, which has already raised $350 million from the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, disclosed in the letter that Loeb’s Third Point would help finance a transaction. Flow has sought to buy WeWork or its assets, as well as provide bankruptcy financing to keep it afloat.

Perhaps not surprisingly, WeWork appears to want nothing to do with Neumann, which he’s apparently not happy about:

Flow’s lawyers accused WeWork of stonewalling for months. “We write to express our dismay with WeWork’s lack of engagement even to provide information to my clients in what is intended to be a value-maximizing transaction for all stakeholders,” wrote the lawyers led by Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel, who also represents Elon Musk and Jay-Z.

According to Dealbook, Neumann has “sought to invest in WeWork for years,” offering to arrange up to $1 billion in financing in October 2022, but the then CEO “shut down that process without explanation.” (Though one could probably read between the lines!) Will he be successful this time around? Stay tuned!

*He returned the money after being publicly shamed.

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