Matthew Modabber, who served as Polymarket‘s chief marketing officer since 2024, has reportedly been fired after an internal investigation which was launched this year. Modabber was known to be closely allied with CEO Shayne Coplan.
Modabber’s firing is part of the latest upheaval the prediction market giant is facing, as per The New York Post. While Modabber was close to the CEO, his ouster comes amid a series of headline-grabbing incidents, which sparked worries among Polymarket shareholders.
This includes a reported scheme where Modabber’s team allegedly built a fake website in order to promote staged videos of users making money off of phony trades. The Wall Street Journal uncovered this in June and it triggered an investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. However, the probe remains ongoing with no wrong-doing established yet.
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At the time WSJ had reported on the incident, Polymarket had said it was ‘committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent market.’
Who is Matthew Modabber?
As per Modabber’s LinkedIn page, he was employee number 11 at Polymarket. He reportedly helped build the company’s daily volume from $300,000 to “mid 9-figure daily volume via digital growth hacks”.
Modabber also claimed to have ‘Built and led a 50+ person team across marketing, partnerships, and growth.’
Matthew Modabber and Shayne Coplan’s relationship in focus
An insider told The Post that Polymarket is working on Modabber’s separation agreement and both sides have mutual respect for one another. His closeness to the 28-year-old Coplan, has reportedly made matters more complicated.
People who spoke to the publication described the outgoing executive as some one who made impulsive decisions which turned into nightmares for public relations. However, disciplining him had been tricky due to the ‘buddy-buddy’ relationship with Coplan.
The two were friends at Beacon School, a prestigious public school in Manhattan‘s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. As per the Post, the two were ‘thick as thieves’ when Polymarket rose to fame – offering users a chance to bet on anything, from the Oscars to the weather.
Coplan was reportedly ‘irate’ and even threatened to terminate members of the legal team which pushed for Modabber’s firing. However, the CEO later conceded that parting ways with his school friend and chief marketing officer was best for Polymarket.
The company board, comprising of Coplan, crypto investor Nick Tomaino, powerful corporate lawyer Alex Spiro and an unidentified partner at Peter Thiel’s investment firm Founders Fund, decided that in recent weeks Modabber was getting in the way of Polymarket trying to shed its image of a startup, as it eyes a possible IPO.