Posh Co-op Boards to Ousted WeWork Boss: Fugheddaboutit

It happened to Richard Nixon, Billy Joel, and Cher. And now it has happened to Adam Neumann, the billionaire recently ousted as head of WeWork. When Neumann went shopping for a posh co-op apartment on Fifth Avenue, the boards at three buildings had a preemptive response: “He need not even apply.” 

Neumann and his wife Rebekah, according to a report in the New York Post, had gone shopping for an apartment in the $50 million range before WeWork’s disastrous Initial Public Offering last month. Citing “a well-placed real estate insider,” the Post says three co-op boards rejected Neumann after reports surfaced in the news media of his erratic behavior. Neumann, who stepped down as CEO of the shared workspace group last week, reportedly wanted to build a WeWork on Mars. He also said at a company event in 2018 that he wanted to solve a worldwide problem by giving orphans a new family: “the WeWork family.” He has expressed a desire to become prime minister of Israel. He also banned staffers from expensing meals that included meat, and before the botched IPO he cashed out more than $700 million from the company. 

Neumann, 40, a hard-partying Israeli with a penchant for private jets and luxury homes, has hired multiple brokers in the past and most recently unleashed WeWork’s former head of commercial real estate, Mark Lapidus, on the search for the perfect New York apartment. According to the source, Lapidus even said to one agent, “Adam Neumann is going to be the first trillionaire of all time. Any building would want him.” 

The source adds, “Neumann wanted the gilded life on Fifth Avenue. But the brokers put in discreet calls to members of the co-op boards, and they all said no.”