WeWork Staffers Express Anger At Neumann’s Massive Payout

Former WeWork CEO and co-founder Adam Neumann will receive as much as $1.2 billion in a bailout deal with its biggest backer SoftBank, and ex-colleagues are not happy.

WeWork’s staff is still facing the potential of losing their jobs amidst the chaos at the coworking company. 

WeWork’s board approved to take a bailout from SoftBank that would give the Japanese conglomerate an 80% controlling stake. SoftBank will also give $6.5 billion to the company as it faces running out of money by next month. It will also buy $3 billion in stock from current shareholders at the lowest price since 2015.

Employees who sell their shares to SoftBank will have to do so at a loss from when their stakes were issued. Mike Adams, who sold a startup to WeWork, said Neumann’s payout was an “injustice.”

While WeWork has been scrambling to take cost-saving measures, several workers on WeWork’s slack network saw irony that the company could not afford to pay employees’ severance. One message featured a reference to the orphan from “Oliver Twist” along with the caption: “Please, Masayoshi Son, can I have some severance?”