What’s Eating Kanye West? Leaving Adidas Would Drop The Volatile Superstar From Billionaire Status

When Forbes determined that Kanye West had a net worth of $1 billion two years ago, the reaction from the newly minted billionaire — who’d been arguing for a long time that he’d already achieved the status — was swift.

“It’s not a billion,” West texted Forbes. “It’s $3.3 billion since no one at Forbes knows how to count.”

The superstar rapper, who uses his legal name Ye, is now putting that billion-dollar net worth at risk, announcing this week that he is done with corporate America, the very source of his fortune. Just one week after saying he wanted to end his quarrels in the wake of Queen Elizabeth’s death, he took a new beef public, telling the clothing chain Gap that he is terminating his contract with them, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. It appears the rift was mutual. Mark Breitbard, President and CEO of Gap, sent an email to Gap Inc. employees Thursday afternoon saying that Gap is “deciding to wind down the partnership” with Yeezy Gap, adding that “how we work together to deliver this vision is not aligned,” according to a copy of the email seen by Forbes.

The move followed months of sniping at Adidas, the sneaker company that pays him some $220 million a year for the right to sell Yeezy sneakers.

“You have to really give me the position to be Ye and let me do what I’m thinking,” he told Gap executives in an August Instagram video, “or I have to do the thinking somewhere else.”

Yeezy’s partnership with Gap got off to a slow start, and as a result Forbes didn’t attribute nearly as much value to it compared to West’s Adidas partnership. Forbes estimates West’s deal with Adidas is worth $1.5 billion, based on a multiple of annual earnings. (The most recent documents West showed Forbes didn’t include a full year of financial results for Yeezy Gap.) In total, Forbes now values West at $2 billion. That includes a stake in ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s shapewear line Skims, real estate, cash and related assets from his multi-platinum music career.

It’s his beef with Adidas that jeopardizes the billionaire status Ye campaigned so long for. Losing the footwear giant would knock his fortune to well below $1 billion, based on Forbes estimates, a fall that would come even as he shakes up his inner circle. Since late 2021, at least two senior members of his team have departed — a communications executive who asked not to be identified, citing a fear of violating a non-disclosure agreement, and entertainment lawyer Miles Cooley. Before that, the billionaire rapper dumped his finance and accounting department and replaced them with Cohn Reznick, a giant global accounting firm. It was only days ago that Michael Cohen — of Donald Trump fixer infamy — told Bloomberg that although West had hired him for personal affairs, he was no longer working with the rapper.

Cooley declined to comment, citing privileged information. The communications executive, along with representatives for Cohn Reznick, didn’t respond to questions. “I don’t see any need to discuss the terms of my relationship with Ye,” Cohen told Forbes via text message.

Gap hasn’t reported separate results for Yeezy, which launched to great fanfare last year but has since received a more subdued embrace from the retailer. Gap’s most recent quarterly reports, filed in May and August, don’t mention Yeezy at all, while Gap’s 2021 annual report name-checks the brand just once, on page 33: “The brand also launched partnerships including Gap Home with Walmart and Yeezy Gap.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that West, through lawyers, sent a letter to Gap stating his intent to terminate the partnership despite being under contract with the retailer through 2026. The letter claims that Gap breached its agreement by not opening stores dedicated to Yeezy products and failing to release apparel. In his email to Gap employees, Breitbard says otherwise: “Important to know is that throughout this partnership, we have upheld our commitments – and the teams have done so with the utmost integrity, navigating obstacles and demonstrating incredible resolve.”

Although it’s not even two years old, the relationship has been strained for a while, with reports emerging in late 2021 that Gap was frustrated by Yeezy’s slow product rollout. Since then, West accused Gap of freezing him out of the creative process and copying his designs. He’s made similar accusations against Adidas.

Conflict is nothing new for West. He had a longtime feud with Taylor Swift. His divorce from Kardashian was contentious and he published aggressive social media posts about comedian Pete Davidson when he was dating her. Two years ago, he used Twitter to call out Universal Music Group, posting dozens of pages of his recording contract, calling the music industry “modern-day slavery.” West revealed in 2018 that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Representatives for West, Universal Music Group, Gap and Adidas didn’t respond to requests for comment.