The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that WeWork was in talks with T-Mobile CEO John Legere to take over at the office space company. Now, according to Alex Sherman at CNBC, Legere is not taking the job.
In many ways, Legere was a natural choice for a WeWork CEO. WeWork is being taken over by SoftBank, the parent company of Sprint. T-Mobile and Sprint are nearing the end of a merger deal years in the marking. With FCC and DOJ approval, the merger only has to survive a lawsuit from a handful of states. In the meantime, however, Legere is a known factor for SoftBank leadership, as they have worked with him throughout the merger process. That first-hand experience no doubt made him a top candidate for the job.
Sources familiar with the situation, however, said that Legere has no plans on leaving T-Mobile. The news is no doubt a welcome relief to T-Mobile investors. During his time with the company, Legere has taken it from a distant fourth place among U.S. carriers to a solid third place and growing at a record rate. Legere was also instrumental in helping get approval for the merger, and will be a steadying influence as the two companies combine.
It should be interesting to see how much T-Mobile can grow with the combined revenue, subscribers and spectrum of the two companies, not to mention Legere’s continuing leadership.