[tomhoward]

His personal ownership was a problem as it created a conflict of interest between his personal property assets the the company, so you have scenarios where he is engaging in related party transactions [1], i.e., potentially entering into lease agreements at above-market rates, to benefit himself personally, and (as the sibling commenter pointed out), having highly valuable property assets, funded by company loans, that remain in his personal ownership even if WeWork goes out of businesses.

When the company owns the properties, that ceases to be the case, as there is no conflict of interest between property owner and occupier as they are one and the same.

He is (and was) still always legally obliged to act bona-fide in the interest of the company (i.e., act as much for the benefit of minority shareholders as his own).

It was just harder to scrutinise when he was both the majority shareholder of the company, and landlord for some of its properties. That is no longer the case.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Related_party_transaction