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Tarek Mansour, CEO of Kalshi, confirmed in a podcast interview that his employees asked social media influencers to promote memes about the FBI raid on the home of his archrival, the CEO of Polymarket.
Both companies offer competing markets for event betting, a new type of betting industry where people bet on the outcomes of events ranging from elections to popular culture.
Mansour said the FBI raided the home of Polymarket CEO Shane Coplan last month, and it emerged that Kalci had tried to capitalize on his rival’s misfortunes by asking influencers to post memes about it.
“Some of our team got really nervous. They didn’t pay anyone. They just asked some of our long-time affiliates to post some memes.” Nicole Wichoff said On this week’s episode of her show FirstMoney In.
Pirates Wires, a media outlet founded by Mike Solana, I mentioned That Calci employees were paying money to post content suggesting that Polymarket and its CEO Shane Coplan were engaging in illegal activities. However, the Pirates Wires article also acknowledged an apparent conflict of interest with this report. Solana is the CMO of Founders Fund, a lead investor in Polymarket, and Polymarket is also an advertiser for Pirates Wires.
The podcast segment discussing Calci’s response to the raid and rivalry with Polymarket was deleted shortly after it initially aired. However, TechCrunch got the deleted part and listened to it.
In the podcast, Mansour accused Polymarket of engaging in similar tactics on social media against Kalci as well. “Both companies were doing this,” he said, adding that his team believed Polymarket was behind some of the social media posts that “we also got subjected to an FBI raid. “That didn’t happen,” he said. “We were not evaluated by the FBI. “
TechCrunch was unable to confirm these claims. Neither Polymarket nor Kalshi responded to our requests for comment.
But the CEO said on the podcast that he had allowed the social media wars waged by members of his company “to go too far,” adding: “I don’t think there’s any benefit to an eye for an eye.”
Although Kalshi did not fire the employees involved, Mansour said the individuals “understand that it was a mistake, and they should not do it again.”
Polymarket claimed that the reasons for the raid were related to political motives surrounding bets on the US presidential election, although both markets were betting on the outcome. According to Bloomberg, The Department of Justice is investigating Polymarket Allegedly allowing US users to participate in restricted trades. Following the 2022 settlement with the Commodity and Exchange Commissions, Polymarket is banned from allowing US traders to bet on its platform, Bloomberg also reported.
Kalshi, unlike Polymarket, has been legally allowed to accept trades from US residents since 2021. In September, the company also… He won a lawsuit This allowed it to accept bets on the election results.
TechCrunch reported last month that Kalshi, whose backers include Sequoia and Y Combinator, is currently raising a funding round worth $50 million or more.
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