ALEXANDRIA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--HBO and Innovation Films have retracted key elements of their “Generation Hustle” series that falsely characterized WeWork founder Adam Neumann, announced Thomas A. Clare, defamation attorney for Neumann.
HBO revised its official description of “Generation Hustle” to remove “true-crime capers with fresh, glossy stories of charismatic fakes, colorful imposters.” And rather than leave viewers with the false impression that Neumann has ever been implicated in any legal misconduct, the episode featuring Neumann is now updated to state clearly that “no criminal or regulatory charges have been filed.”
Reflecting WeWork’s ongoing success as the world’s pioneering shared office community, the episode has also been updated to acknowledge that WeWork is poised to go public at a $9 billion valuation.
These changes are the latest in a series of media apologies and retractions regarding the false narrative surrounding Adam Neumann. In recent weeks, Bloomberg, Forbes, and Business Insider have all agreed to take similar steps.
“HBO did the right thing here by promptly retracting these false implications about Adam and the history of WeWork, and we applaud the network for taking these responsible steps,” Clare said. “The media has repeatedly gotten the story of Adam wrong, and we hope these responsible steps by a reputable outlet will help put an end to the mischaracterizations of Adam’s successful role in creating a transformational business.”
Neumann and Miguel McKelvey founded WeWork in 2010 and quickly scaled the flexible office concept to redefine the essence of the coworking experience. WeWork now has over 500,000 members in more than 730 locations around the world, with an enterprise customer base that accounts for more than 50% of total memberships and includes some of the biggest and most successful companies in the world including Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and many more.[1]
[1] WeWork Q2 2021 Results: https://www.wework.com/ideas/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/08/2021-Q2-Earnings-Presentation-.pdf