(United States) - Markets and companies are facing fresh uncertainty and volatility as the price of oil plummeted below $0 today. But some companies are looking for a silver lining. WeWork , erstwhile darling of Silicon Valley, is working hard to help ease the part it played in SoftBank's $24 million billion loss by accepting oil barrels as tenants.
"We are very excited to welcome our new tenants from West Texas to spaces across the country. We've prepared everything for them to be as comfortable and productive as possible, from places to be stacked floor-to-celing to...that's about it. Really we're just very excited to have tenants that might be worth something someday. Wait wait - can you redact that?" said a WeWork spokesperson.
WeWork is facing still more losses as coworking places are closed globally. They hope that their pivot to oil storage will allow them to hide in the ranks of struggling oil companies like Tetra Technologies Inc., Par Pacific Holdings Inc., and Nabors Industries Ltd.
"I like to think of this as a sort of 'camouflage' manoeuver that will let us hide in plain sight among the other oil companies on their way to the bottom...which is one investment strategy that I haven't tried yet. The last few years were about 'shock and awe', you know? I really wanted to see what would happen if I just deployed billions and billions of dollars of capital indiscriminately. If this doesn't work we might have to try the 'white flag' method or something. We'll see.", said Masayoshi Son, SoftBank founder.
