EXCLUSIVE: Madwell's Madness: A $17.5M Private Jet, a $1M Launch Party, and Adderall ‘Connects’

In December 2022, at a rooftop bar in Brooklyn, employees from indie ad agency Madwell gathered for a ‘Y2K prom’-themed holiday party. Employees dressed to the nines, some in full-blown early 2000s-era prom dresses, and mingled over cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Speakers blared pop tunes from the early aughts as snow fell outside. Late in the evening, Chris Sojka and David Eisenman, who had cofounded the agency together in 2010, toasted their staff. Sojka wore a purple suit and a top hat, and he and Eisenman thanked everyone for their hard work throughout the year, and told their staff how proud they were of everything they had accomplished. “They were so excited for all of us to get together and celebrate,” said one former employee who attended the event. “That was a really great time.” According to this ex-staffer and another former colleague, both of whom had joined in 2021, Madwell, at that point, was the best job they’d ever had. Their colleagues were intelligent and creative, and they were given the chance to work on exciting projects and flashy stunts for big clients. Even in its early days, Madwell had a reputation for innovation, taking on creative work for brands like Vita Coco and KIND Snacks. By the 2020s, it was lauded for its work with big brands and A-list stars, like a Verizon Visible campaign fronted by actor Dan Levy. Vita Coco, KIND Snacks, and Dan Levy did not respond to requests for comment. Verizon declined to comment. But in 2024, the two cofounders became entangled in a messy legal battle, where Sojka alleged Eisenman stole from the company, and Eisenman countersued, claiming that Sojka breached fiduciary duty by engaging in criminal misconduct. The two came to an undisclosed settlement in October, and Sojka has since taken full operational control of Madwell. This year, shortly after Madwell received a ‘Comeback Agency of the Year’ award from Ad Age, tensions exploded, as both employees and vendors complained of delinquent paychecks and a pervasive culture of fear under Sojka's leadership. When asked to comment on specific allegations in this article, a lawyer representing Sojka and Madwell sent ADWEEK a “cease and desist” letter charging that the allegations included unspecified “objectively false factual representations” that Eisenman had previously raised in the settled lawsuit. Asked to identify the alleged inaccuracies, Sojka and Madwell did not further respond. Internal company documents, court filings, and interviews with 13 people—including current and former staffers, some of whom were once close to Sojka—describe a once-thriving creative shop that devolved into one that consistently missed payments to staff and partners, overseen by a mercurial leader who indulged in private jets, luxury hotels, and expensive clothing. “He started to become more manic” There was some trouble as early as 2017, when a former employee sued Madwell, claiming unlawful termination after she threw a slice of birthday cake into the trash. That case has since been settled. And even though the company cut about 10% of its then-160 staffers in 2022, ADWEEK previously reported, it still generated strong revenues of around $35 million that year, Madwell cofounder Eisenman recently told ADWEEK. But a big shift happened around 2023, when Sojka started to act erratically, according to several of his then-colleagues. Sojka was deeply impacted by the illness of someone close to him, and his dog became sick after a pet food company that he’d invested in changed its formula, according to two ex-employees who were once close friends of Sojka’s. Meanwhile, fissures between Sojka and Eisenman deepened as Sojka’s behavior became volatile, those sources said. “He started to become more manic, started to drink a lot more, started to not sleep, and that compounded the feelings he was having,” one of those sources told ADWEEK. “It got to the point where you never knew if he was going to show up.” This person recalled getting calls from Sojka at 3 or 4 in the morning where he’d scream for nearly an hour, then tearfully apologize in the office the next day. Eisenman told ADWEEK Sojka’s changing behavior impacted the business. For more than a decade, the two had operated under a system of joint decision-making on company expenditures, Eisenman said. But beginning around 2020, according to Sojka’s court filings, they “began to increasingly disagree regarding forward-looking strategy.” Eisenman contends that by 2023, Sojka began making unilateral spending decisions that Eisenman believed were financially unsound. In going through company expenses, he said he discovered that Sojka had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxury goods and services without telling him. These expenses, according to financial records Eisenman submitted to the court, include $8,876 at the clothing boutique James Perse in New York; over $1,300 at IV hydration spas in New York and California within a two-month period; and over $5,100 on luxury hotel rooms in Barcelona—all on a Madwell company account. Other documents from Eisenman’s counterclaim indicate that Sojka and Madwell president Gabriela Benitez spent upwards of $160,000 through the company’s accounts on various private jet charters throughout 2023 and 2024, which Eisenman considered wasteful. Eisenman claimed in the lawsuit that Sojka abused drugs and alcohol during this time period, and another former employee who worked closely with Madwell management said they had witnessed Sojka drink glasses of fernet from Fernet-Branca—a Madwell client—frequently throughout the day, including during and between meetings in the office. Sojka allegedly tapped employees to help him acquire Adderall illicitly. One of these employees asked for a “connect” from another staffer to get the drug, according to text messages obtained by ADWEEK. “He would throw out our work an hour before we were supposed to present” As his demeanor changed, Sojka’s approach to creative direction became increasingly rigid, departing sharply from the more collaborative style he had once embraced, according to multiple sources. “He would throw out our work an hour before we were supposed to present it to clients and ask us to do something completely different,” said one former employee. Some staffers started referring to Sojka as “Elon,” this person added. Multiple former employees said that colleagues were so scared of Sojka that some made up excuses to avoid coming into the office, such as calling out sick. “I could feel my heart rate up every day going into work, not knowing what to expect, scared that I was going to make a mistake,” another former employee said. All the while, the exorbitant spending continued. In October 2023, Sojka shelled out $60,000 to charter a private jet, Eisenman recalled. Sojka flew with a handful of Madwell employees to a Los Angeles launch party for a music video the agency had created for e.l.f. Cosmetics, Eisenman and multiple others said. The artist, Colombian singer Manuel Turizo, planned to arrive at the party by helicopter. Sojka allegedly said he “had to look the part,” so he chartered the jet, according to one ex-staffer who was close to Sojka. Turizo did not respond to a request for comment. Sojka spent over $1 million of agency funds on the launch party, Eisenman told ADWEEK, blowing past the $300,000 budget. Though the client eventually reimbursed some of the spend, Eisenman said, the agency still paid hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket. In January of 2024, Eisenman said, he stopped showing up at the office regularly as the clashes between the two cofounders intensified. After Eisenman decreased the monthly credit limit on the American Express business card that the cofounders shared, according to court documents, Sojka obtained a temporary restraining order against Eisenman to prevent him from barring access to banking and credit card accounts. Thus began their messy and drawn-out legal dispute, where Sojka claimed that Eisenman had resigned in March 2024, which would allow the company to redeem his shares, while Eisenman argued he was wrongfully locked out of the company. “He attempted to flip the conference room table” As the legal battle heated up in the spring of 2024, Sojka began sharing details about his dispute with Eisenman with employees en masse. Sojka sent a company-wide email, obtained by ADWEEK, detailing their financial disagreements and explaining that he’d obtained a temporary restraining order against Eisenman. And on May 8, Sojka called an in-person meeting for all employees in the agency’s Brooklyn office, where he complained about the legal proceedings and shared intimate details of his private life, according to multiple accounts from former employees. “He got up on a chair in front of everyone, started crying, said that he hadn't slept in the same bed as his girlfriend in six months,” recounted one source who was formerly part of Sojka’s inner circle. This account was corroborated by three other ex-staffers who were in attendance. Sojka’s erratic behavior grew, multiple sources said, after Eisenman stopped showing up regularly at the agency and after Madwell’s HR head Tyrone Green was fired and chief financial officer Dan Tucker was no longer at the company. Sojka’s leadership, one former employee said, “worked well when he was being checked by a CFO and other leadership who were a little more grounded.” With fewer voices in management, it was a different story.That July, for example, Sojka grew frustrated with employees about a project produced through Madwell’s fabrication firm Millwright, calling it “low grade bullshit,” according to a July 15 HR complaint reviewed by ADWEEK. “He started shouting and screaming in the conference room, started kicking the credenza and attempted to flip the conference room table,” alleged a former staffer who was present. It wasn’t the first time Sojka had exhibited violent behavior around colleagues. Near the end of 2023, Eisenman said, the two cofounders had an argument outside the Madwell office in Brooklyn, and Sojka became so enraged that he hurled a glass filled with water at the wall behind Eisenman, shattering the glass. Eisenman told ADWEEK that, at the time, he shrugged it off. “It was just the kind of volatile behavior that we had seen a lot.” Madwell’s cash issues also grew and employee paychecks started arriving late, first by hours, and then by days, and then weeks. A $17.5 million purchase Sojka spent lavishly throughout the final quarter of 2024, according to documentation obtained by ADWEEK. The exec took out a loan to buy a $17.5 million private jet according to September loan documents obtained by ADWEEK. Sojka purchased the 11-seat 2009 Dassault Falcon 7X, through an entity called If You Believe In Me, I’ll Believe In You LLC, which he owns in its entirety. The LLC is connected to Madwell; its name is registered at the bottom of the website for Madcorp, the holding company owned by Sojka under which Madwell sits. In the 70 days after the jet was registered with the Federal Aviation Administration in early November, the jet completed over 55 flights, according to publicly available flight path data. Following the purchase of the plane, payroll for some employees was delayed another six times between December 13 to February 28—ranging from a few hours to nearly two weeks late, according to a former Madwell employee who recorded their own missed payments. One source with knowledge of Madwell’s financials believes the missed payments to employees at the time of purchase of the jet was merely a coincidence. But Madwell appears to have splurged even in the face of these payroll struggles. In October of 2024, Madwell worked with Wiz Khalifa on a music video production for OZIUM Air Sanitizer. Sojka hired the rapper for the project with no guarantee from the brand that it would foot the bill, according to an ex-employee familiar with the agency’s finances. Madwell fronted a $145,000 payment for Khalifa, this person said. Sojka insisted the funds be wired to the musician before his arrival on set, according to an October 5 email obtained by ADWEEK. Plus, the source said, Sojka shelled out thousands of dollars on diamond jewelry for the rapper to wear during the video and keep afterward. “What really took Madwell into a bad financial state is Chris’ dream projects that hadn't been sold to a client,” said the former employee. “He would spend all of this money in advance and then try to sell it to the client after the fact, in hopes that they would pay.” In securing Khalifa’s involvement, Sojka had sapped the company of valuable liquidity it needed to make payroll, according to a text exchange obtained by ADWEEK. Madwell’s head of finance pushed Sojka on the decision to prioritize payment to Khalifa rather than to staff, writing: “I thought us making those payments to wiz (sic) were part of the plan that makes money we all talked in length. You asked us to do it and we did. We asked for payroll and you said you would but now…peace?” ADWEEK was unable to determine if OZIUM reimbursed Madwell’s out-of-pocket spend on the project. Neither Wiz Khalifa nor OZIUM responded to requests for comment. “Chris prioritizes everything—literally everything—above making payroll,” said the former Madwell staffer who was familiar with the company’s finances. By mid-November, payroll delays had gone from hours to days. Payroll due on November 15 wasn’t deposited in employee accounts until four days later, on November 19, according to internal Slack messages reviewed by ADWEEK. During the debacle, Sojka sent a company-wide email assuring staff that “we are not going out of business.” Some vendors, too, stopped receiving pay due to them by Madwell, according to a current employee with direct knowledge of the matter. One vendor, who spoke to ADWEEK on condition of anonymity, said they are still owed tens of thousands of dollars, dating back many months, for a project taken on last year. As of March 25, some staffers have still not received pay due on March 15. In an agency-wide meeting held on Friday, March 21, Madwell CFO Robert Delgado said the company continues to face liquidity issues and told staffers he does not have “a concrete date” for when overdue pay will be issued, according to a recording obtained by ADWEEK. A number of current Madwell employees are considering working with an employment attorney in an effort to recoup the money they're still owed, a current staffer told ADWEEK in a text. Enter Clawboy Sojka has responded harshly to concerns about missed paychecks while enforcing a rigid in-office attendance policy, ADWEEK previously reported, and has claimed that employees’ correspondence with the press has derailed efforts to secure investor funding. Meanwhile, in recent months Sojka has continued to contact Eisenman, his former partner and friend. Since settling the lawsuit in October of 2024, Eisenman says he has received intermittent texts from Sojka, often with cryptic or demeaning messages. Sojka sent Eisenman a ‘diss track’-type song entitled “Cheap,” which he created himself under the pseudonym Clawboy, in December 2024. Later, on March 12, Sojka sent Eisenman a song with the ominous lyrics “take cover, because they are coming for you." Both songs have been heard by ADWEEK. “I've since blocked him,” Eisenman said. Update Mar. 25, 3:43 pm ET: This story has been updated to clarify that Sojka has contacted Eisenman via text since the two arrived at a settlement in October. A previous version of this story said that Eisenman received both texts and emails from Sojka since the settlement. Additionally, the original story misstated the dates of the songs Sojka sent to Eisenman; the correct dates have now been provided.

Agencies

EXCLUSIVE: Madwell's Madness: A $17.5M Private Jet, a $1M Launch Party, and Adderall ‘Connects’

Insiders reveal how CEO Chris Sojka went from charismatic leader to missing staff paydays while splurging on private jets, luxury hotels, and a Wiz Khalifa-fronted video production

Kendra Barnett

Agencies

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