While WWE continues to fire on all cylinders financially as it prepares to merge with UFC to form a new publicly traded company under the umbrella of Endeavor, it’s not all roses for executive chairman Vince McMahon.
The latest WWE earnings call made that clear this week. CEO Nick Khan revealed (h/t Wrestling Observer) that McMahon has been on medical leave since July 21 due to spinal surgery. While he remains in his role as executive chairman, he will be on leave indefinitely, and Khan said the company will respect his privacy on the subject of his health.
Khan declined to comment on the other McMahon-related part of the quarterly filings: that he had been served with a search warrant last month.
On July 17, 2023, federal law enforcement agents executed a search warrant and served a federal grand jury subpoena on Mr. McMahon. No charges have been brought in these investigations.
Additionally from the The Company has received voluntary and compulsory legal demands for documents, including from federal law enforcement and regulatory agencies, concerning the investigation and related subject matters.
While it’s not clear exactly what the warrant and subpoena were for, the assumption is that they are related to some still unresolved part of the scandal that enveloped McMahon last summer, when the Wall Street Journal first uncovered a board investigation into hush money payments he made to cover up affairs and accusations of sexual harassment.
Follow-up reporting found that the scope of those payments reached nearly $15 million to a number of alleged victims. The fallout led to McMahon briefly retiring from WWE before returning as executive chairman several months later — with a friendlier board that enabled him to effectively dodge the internal investigation.
WWE’s quarterly filings, however, show that the law might not be done with McMahon yet. For what it’s worth, the company says he has continued to repay it for “all reasonable costs” related to the prior investigation and its subsequent need to amend its filings, to the tune of $17.4 million to date.