Jackal Pan/Getty, Tyler Le/BI
- Adam Neumann is giving up on plans to reacquire WeWork.
- He called a different bankruptcy plan that cut him out "unrealistic and unlikely to succeed."
- That deal includes $450 million in equity funding and plans to wipe away billions of debt.
Adam Neumann is abandoning his plans to re-acquire WeWork.
Last month, the company announced a separate plan to emerge from bankruptcy that cut him out of its future.
Now, Neumann is stepping away.
And the entrepreneur told Business Insider he's not exactly hopeful about the company's new path.
"For several months, we tried to work constructively with WeWork to create a strategy that would allow it to thrive," Neumann said in a statement. "Instead, the company looks to be emerging from bankruptcy with a plan that appears unrealistic and unlikely to succeed."
The New York Times' Dealbook was the first to report that Neumann was throwing in the towel.
A representative for Neumann previously told Business Insider he'd submitted a bid of about $650 million.
The deal WeWork chose includes $450 million in equity funding and plans to wipe away billions in debt.
WeWork was once a Wall Street darling with a stunning $47 billion valuation driven in large part by Neumann's own ambitious pronouncements.
WeWork would be more than just shared office space, Neumann had said. It would change the world.
But the world had other ideas. In 2019, the company's IPO failed after investors got a glimpse into its financials and questioned Neumann's leadership.
Neumann ultimately stepped down that same year as WeWork's value plummeted.
It was a shocking collapse for the once-promising startup that had been pumped full of cash from some of the world's biggest investors.
In November 2023, WeWork filed for bankruptcy after the pandemic weakened office demand. Neumann said from the sidelines that the company had "failed to take advantage of a product that is more relevant today than ever before."
Neumann founded his next venture, Flow, a rental-housing company backed by Andreessen Horowitz. It was through that company that he recently tried to reacquire WeWork.
WeWork said last week it had completed a review of its lease portfolio in the US and Canada that would reduce rent commitments by $11 billion.