Marcelo Claure Is Out At SoftBank After Billion-Dollar Pay Dispute

SoftBank Group Chief Operating Officer and WeWork Executive Chairman Marcelo Claure is leaving the company after a disagreement over his compensation — for which he was reportedly seeking as much as $1B.

SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son confirmed the departure in a statement late Thursday. Michel Combs was named as the head of SoftBank Group International, where Claure was CEO.

“Marcelo has made many contributions to SoftBank during his time here and we thank him for his dedication and wish him continued success in his future endeavors,” he said. “I have great confidence in Michel Combes and the talented SoftBank team to continue with the great work we have underway at SBGI.”

Claure was paid $16M last fiscal year, or $1.8B yen, but was pushing for pay to be pushed up to $1B. Shares in SoftBank rose 3% in Tokyo, but are still down 50% from their peak in 2021. Claure released a statement saying he would be “forever grateful” for his time at the conglomerate.

Aside from pay, he and Son had a difference of opinion on the future of the Latin American investment fund, with Claure pushing for it to be spun off, Bloomberg reported. Claure had helped right the ship at coworking firm WeWork when he took over as chairman, running the embattled company after Son tapped him to succeed Adam Neumann.

In May last year, Claure said that sales at WeWork are back to pre-pandemic levels. He had worked alongside WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani to put in place a suite of restructuring changes to rebuild the company after its disastrous 2019 IPO attempt and the fallout from the pandemic. WeWork went public in October after completing a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, but its shares were trading for more than 30% below its opening price Friday afternoon.