WeWork is planning to lay off thousands — up to 25% of its employees — as its new CEOs focus on the core business

WeWork Press Kit - Front desk in Sanlitun

WeWork is planning to lay off between 10 and 25% of its workforce. WeWork

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WeWork is planning massive layoffs that will number in the thousands as the new leaders of the embattled shared-space company look to focus on its core business and reduce costs, a source familiar with the matter said. 

WeWork executives haven't yet finalized the specific cuts, but the numbers will be "in the thousands" — though less than the 3,000 to 5,000 layoffs that had been laid out in earlier media reports, the source said. 

WeWork has about 12,500 employees, so a cut of 1,000 to 3,000 people would be about 10 to 25% of its staff.  

Bloomberg reported earlier on Thursday that WeWork had announced layoffs to staff but did not provide a number. 

Read more: Sex, tequila, and a tiger: Employees inside Adam Neumann's WeWork talk about the nonstop party to attain a $100 billion dream and the messy reality that tanked it 

Job cuts have been rumored for weeks as cofounder Adam Neumann stepped down and new co-CEOs Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham stepped in to replace the unconventional leader. 

Minson and Gunningham are also looking to sell some of the companies WeWork purchased in recent years, as well as the Gulfstream G650 the company bought last year for $60 million. WeWork is also considering slowing its expansion in China, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

The company expanded rapidly in recent years, counting more than 500 locations globally this year from just over 100 in 2017. The growth was fueled by billions in venture-capital investments, most notably from the Japanese investor SoftBank.

On Monday, the new CEOs said they would shelve its initial public offering, though they said in a statement that being a public company was still the goal.

Read more: How WeWork spiraled from a $47 billion valuation to talk of bankruptcy in just 6 weeks 

Minson and Gunningham said in a statement: "We have decided to postpone our IPO to focus on our core business, the fundamentals of which remain strong. We are as committed as ever to serving our members, enterprise customers, landlord partners, employees and shareholders. We have every intention to operate WeWork as a public company and look forward to revisiting the public equity markets in the future."

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Becky Peterson was formerly a tech features correspondent focused on long-form profiles and investigations into the most interesting people and companies at the intersection of technology and finance.She's broken news on major tech stories including Palantir's work on Project Maven, Peter Thiel's $18 million estate in Miami (which was once featured on MTV's 'The Real World'), Jeffrey Epstein's tour of SpaceX, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's insistence that employees take "the D."Previously, she covered enterprise tech and tech investment banking with a focus on M&A, IPO and venture capital deals in San Francisco. She graduated from New York University with a master's degree in media, culture and communication with an emphasis on technology and society. ExpertiseSilicon Valley, Venture Capital, Investment Banking, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine MaxwellPopular articlesInside the turmoil at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where employees say divorce, Epstein, and vaccines have left some staffers polishing their résumésThe secret life of Ian Osborne, the shadowy 38-year-old cofounder of Chamath Palihapitiya's SPAC who has built the ultimate black book of billionairesSilicon Valley VCs are at war with the 'far left radicals' running CaliforniaInside the life of Ghislaine Maxwell's secret husband, a once-high-flying tech entrepreneur backed by Eric Schmidt who is now a central figure in one of the country's most high-profile legal casesRent the Runway CEO Jennifer Hyman, one of the most successful female founders, is fighting to save her companyJeffrey Epstein set Elon Musk's brother up with a girlfriend in effort to get close to the Tesla founder, sources sayA drunken late-night assault allegation has roiled the secretive world of Mark Zuckerberg's private family office. Personal aides are speaking out about claims that household staff endured sexual harassment and racism from their colleagues.

Meghan is the bureau chief in Singapore. She oversees business, lifestyle, and news coverage and leads the company's local hiring and editorial strategy.Singapore's bureau works on global news during Asia's daytime. They also collect tales from around the region about entrepreneurs, Big Tech work culture, FIRE, relocation, consumer trends, and AI, focused on people-centric storytelling.Before moving to Singapore in 2024, Meghan worked in NYC and SF as a senior correspondent, writing deeply-reported business investigations. If you have sensitive information, please email her from a nonwork email or reach out on secure messaging app Signal at @MeghanEMorris.1 (PR pitches only by email.)She enjoys speaking about tech, finance, and news on television, at conferences, and on podcasts. Please email for booking.These are some of her favorite features she has written over the years:

She spent the 2022-23 academic year doing Columbia University's Knight-Bagehot Fellowship, where she took courses in statistics, advanced corporate finance, family office management, and other classes at Columbia Business School. During her fellowship, she also led MBA seminars on due diligence and brought Pulitzer-winning authors to the business school.Before she joined Business Insider in 2018, she wrote about private equity real estate for three years at the industry's trade magazine, PERE. Meghan holds bachelor's and master's journalism degrees from Northwestern University.