Here’s how much WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann made before the company’s bankruptcy
Adam Neumann, co-founder and former chief executive officer of WeWork.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
WeWork’s dizzying rise and protracted fall into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday largely hinged on one man: Adam Neumann.
The former WeWork CEO founded the company in 2010 and largely through the force of his personality created a real estate juggernaut that was worth $47 billion at its January 2019 peak. By the time it filed for bankruptcy protection, WeWork was worth a mere $45 million.
“As the co-founder of WeWork who spent a decade building the business with an amazing team of mission-driven people, the company’s anticipated bankruptcy filing is disappointing,” Neumann said in a statement to CNBC. “It has been challenging for me to watch from the sidelines since 2019 as WeWork has failed to take advantage of a product that is more relevant today than ever before. I believe that, with the right strategy and team, a reorganization will enable WeWork to emerge successfully.”
Neumann stepped down as CEO in Sept. 2019 after critics noticed questionable self-dealings in the company’s IPO filing, like selling the trademark to the word “We” for $6 million in stock (which he would later return). Reports around the same time described an unorthodox management style and a hard-partying environment at the company. The company withdrew its IPO under scrutiny, frustrating investors who’d hoped for outsized returns.
Unlike many founders who have seen their net worth evaporate alongside their company’s fortunes, the 44-year-old Neumann likely remains a wealthy man.
A sizeable portion of that wealth was accumulated after Neumann stepped away from the company, as it girded up once again for a public offering, this time via a special purpose acquisition company.
As part of that SPAC process, SoftBank reportedly paid Neumann a reported $480 million for half of his remaining stake in WeWork in 2021. The investment giant had initially attempted to back out of buying Neumann’s full stake, valued at $1 billion, prompting a suit from the former CEO.
Neumann also reportedly collected another $185 million as part of a non-compete agreement and a further $106 million as part of a settlement. In all, despite being removed from a management role years earlier, Neumann reportedly collected around $770 million in cash from the 2021 SPAC process alone.
Neumann also still retained a stake in the company valued at around $722 million when WeWork debuted in 2021, Bloomberg reported. Following the bankruptcy filing, those shares are worthless, although it’s not known how many — if any — he still holds.
As the company’s market cap spiraled downward, Neumann embarked on another real-estate tech venture, called Flow. Valued at $1 billion and flush with a $350 million check from venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz, the company promised to solve inequities in the rental-housing market by creating a sense of community and helping renters build equity in their homes.
Flow has reportedly built up a portfolio of 3,000 units in major metropolitan areas, with Neumann describing the company’s approach as a “technology-first” venture. At the surface level, it would seem to be a continuation of Neumann’s approach with WeWork, adapted for the residential market, with the possibility of a financial services arm as well. Flow’s website lacks further detail, although the company is hiring for several positions across the U.S.
In an October appearance on CNBC, Neumann emphasized how his upbringing shaped his business ventures. “The WeWork journey was an amazing one,” Neumann said.
“Flow is another iteration of the same story, which is: when people live in community, when people live together, when people obviously have differences,” Neumann continued, “there’s always a common ground.”
The Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, June 9, 2023.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Silicon Valley executives and financiers publicly opened their wallets in support of President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential run. The early returns in 2025 aren’t great, to say the least.
Following Trump’s sweeping tariff plan announced Wednesday, the Nasdaq suffered steep consecutive daily drops to finish 10% lower for the week, the index’s worst performance since the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020.
The tech industry’s leading CEO’s rushed to contribute to Trump’s inauguration in January and paraded to Washington, D.C., for the event. Since then, it’s been a slog.
The market can always turn around, but economists and investors aren’t optimistic, and concerns are building of a potential recession. The seven most valuable U.S. tech companies lost a combined $1.8 trillion in market cap in two days.
Apple slid 14% for the week, its biggest drop in more than five years. Tesla, led by top Trump adviser Elon Musk, plunged 9.2% and is now down more than 40% for the year. Musk contributed close to $300 million to help propel Trump back to the White House.
Nvidia, Meta and Amazon all suffered double-digit drops for the week. For Amazon, a ninth straight weekly decline marks its longest such losing streak since 2008.
With Wall Street selling out of risky assets on concern that widespread tariff hikes will punish the U.S. and global economy, the fallout has drifted down to the IPO market. Online lender Klarna and ticketing marketplace StubHub delayed their IPOs due to market turbulence, just weeks after filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and fintech company Chime is also reportedly delaying its listing.
CoreWeave, a provider of artificial intelligence infrastructure, last week became the first venture-backed company to raise more than $1 billion in a U.S. IPO since 2021. But the company slashed its offering, and trading has been very volatile in its opening days on the market. The stock plunged 12% on Friday, leaving it 17% above its offer price but below the bottom of its initial range.
“You couldn’t create a worse market and macro environment to go public,” said Phil Haslett, co-founder of EquityZen, a platform for investing in private companies. “Way too much turbulence. All flights are grounded until further notice.”
CoreWeave investor Mark Klein of SuRo Capital previously told CNBC that the company could be the first in an “IPO parade.” Now he’s backtracking.
“It appears that the IPO parade has been temporarily halted,” Klein told CNBC by email on Friday. “The current tariff situation has prompted these companies to pause and assess its impact.”
‘Cave rapidly’
During last year’s presidential campaign, prominent venture capitalists like Marc Andreessen backed Trump, expecting that his administration would usher in a boom and eliminate some of the hurdles to startup growth set up by the Biden administration. Andreessen and his partner, Ben Horowitz, said in July that their financial support of the Trump campaign was due to what they called a better “little tech agenda.”
A spokesperson for Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment.
Some techies who supported Trump in the campaign have taken to social media to defend their positions.
Venture capitalist Keith Rabois, a managing director at Khosla Ventures, posted on X on Thursday that “Trump Derangement Syndrome has morphed into Tariff Derangement Syndrome.” He said tariffs aren’t inflationary, are effective at reducing fentanyl imports, and he expects that “most other countries will cave and cave rapidly.”
That was before China’s Finance Ministry said on Friday that it will impose a 34% tariff on all goods imported from the U.S. starting on April 10.
At Sequoia Capital, which is the biggest investor in Klarna, outspoken Trump supporter Shaun Maguire, wrote on X, “The first long-term thinking President of my lifetime,” and said in a separate post that, “The price of stocks says almost nothing about the long term health of an economy.”
However, Allianz Chief Economic Advisor Mohamed El-Erian warned on Friday that Trump’s extensive raft of import tariffs are putting the U.S. economy at risk of recession.
“You’ve had a major repricing of growth prospects, with a recession in the U.S. going up to 50% probability, you’ve seen an increase in inflation expectations, up to 3.5%,” he told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, Italy.
Former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates, left, and Steve Ballmer, center, pose for photos with CEO Satya Nadella during an event celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Microsoft on April 4, 2025 in Redmond, Washington.
Stephen Brashear | Getty Images
Meanwhile, executives at tech’s megacap companies were largely silent this week, and their public relations representatives declined to provide comments about their thinking.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was in the awkward position on Friday of celebrating his company’s 50th anniversary at corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Alongside Microsoft’s prior two CEOs, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Nadella sat down with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin for a televised interview that was planned well before Trump’s tariff announcement.
When asked about the tariffs at the top of the interview, Nadella effectively dodged the question and avoided expressing his views about whether the new policies will hamper Microsoft’s business.
Ballmer, who was succeeded by Nadella in 2014, acknowledged to Sorkin that “disruption is very hard on people” and that, “as a Microsoft shareholder, this kind of thing is not good.” Ballmer and Gates are two of the 12 wealthiest people in the world thanks to their Microsoft fortunes.
C-suites may not be able to stay quiet for long, especially if the recent turmoil spills into next week.
Lise Buyer, who previously helped guide Google through its IPO and now works as an adviser to companies going public, said there’s no appetite for risk in the market under these conditions. But there is risk that staffers get jittery, and they’ll surely look to their leaders for some reassurance.
“Until markets settle out and we have the opportunity to access valuation levels, public company CEOs should work to calm potentially distressed employees,” Buyer said in an email. “And private company managements should refine plans to get by on dollars already in the treasury.”
— CNBC’s Hayden Field, Jordan Novet, Leslie Picker, Annie Palmer and Samantha Subin contributed to this report.
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