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Former Sprint boss Marcelo Claure leaving SoftBank over $2 billion pay dispute: reports

Former Sprint boss Marcelo Claure is quitting his job as chief operating officer of the telecom company’s former owner, SoftBank Group International, following a dispute over $2 billion he felt he was owed for his work on Sprint’s merger with T-Mobile and SoftBank’s investment in WeWork, The New York Times and CNBC are reporting.

Japan-based SoftBank is expected to announce the resignation “in the coming days,” The Times reported, citing information from knowledgeable sources. The Financial Times said it could be early as Thursday or next week.

But Bloomberg reported that “negotiations are ongoing” and that Claure might end up staying as he has suggested he might resign in the past without doing so.

The Bolivian-born Claure was Sprint’s president and CEO from 2014 until 2018, then as executive chairman oversaw the company’s 2020 merger with T-Mobile USA.

The Times previously reported that Claure, who was making $17 million a year, believed he deserved an even heftier reward for the Sprint deal and “for straightening out SoftBank’s investment in WeWork, the office-space leasing giant that went public in October, as well as the future value he could bring to SoftBank.”

Claure’s boss, SoftBank founder Masayoski Son, and other top executives objected to the size of his requested compensation, which has led the way to his expected departure.

The Financial Times said Claure, 51, had been seen as one of three possible successors to replace Son, 64, when he retires. One of those three left the company last year. And with Claure on the way out, questions have arisen about a succession plan at the top of SoftBank.