Vince McMahon still owns a decent chunk of TKO, the company formed last year by the merger of WWE and UFC. But he has no role in its operation and never will again.
That’s according to someone who would know, TKO president and COO Mark Shapiro. The longtime media executive spoke today at the Morgan Stanley 2024 Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on topics like the deal to move Raw to Netflix starting in 2025 and how TKO plans to “go to town” with sponsors around the arena and on the ring for WWE shows.
When the talk turned to McMahon, Shapiro said he still owns part of the company but won’t ever be part of its operation again (via Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics).
Shapiro says TKO did not participate in Vince McMahon's most recent stock sale. He roughly has 8.5%. We don't talk to him, we don't know his motives, his plans, his timelines. He doesn't work for the company. He doesn't come into the offices. He's not coming back to the company.
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) March 6, 2024
McMahon resigned on Jan. 26 from his positions as executive chairman and member of the board of directors of TKO. It was heavily reported in the following weeks that TKO CEO Ari Emanuel (who was publicly supportive of McMahon when the merger first took place) and Shapiro told McMahon it was the right thing to do in the wake of the explosive Janel Grant sex trafficking lawsuit filed in January.
The fear among many was that McMahon would simply lie low for a bit and then engineer a return as he did when his first sexual abuse scandal hit in the summer of 2022. Thing have changed substantially in the WWE power structure since then, however, and Shapiro’s comments make it clear that TKO doesn’t envision McMahon as part of its future.
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