Exclusive | Polymarket fires top executive who was closely allied with CEO Shayne Coplan: sources

Polymarket has fired a top executive who was closely allied with CEO Shayne Coplan – the latest upheaval at the prediction market giant as it grapples with growing pains, The Post has learned.Matthew Modabber – who has served as Polymarket’s chief marketing officer since January 2024 – has been ousted following an internal probe that began earlier this year over a string of headline-grabbing incidents that have sparked concern among the company’s investors, sources said.Those included a reported scheme in which Modabber’s team allegedly built a fake webpage to promote staged videos of users making money off phony trades – a sham that was uncovered in a June expose by the Wall Street Journal and which triggered an investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.The investigation is ongoing and no wrong-doing has been established.Polymarket told the Journal at the time it was “committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets,” adding that it plans to conduct a comprehensive audit of active promotional content.One of the insiders said Polymarket is finalizing Modabber’s separation agreement and that both parties have maintained mutual respect for one another. A Polymarket spokeswoman declined to comment and Modabber didn’t respond to The Post’s request for comment.Modabber’s ouster was complicated by the fact that he has been a close confidante of 28-year-old Coplan, who became the nation’s youngest billionaire after Polymarket exploded in popularity following the 2024 presidential election, sources told The Post. In conversations with The Post, insiders have described Modabber as an executive who makes impulsive decisions that have turned into public relations nightmares.

But disciplining Modabber had proved tricky because of his buddy-buddy relationship with Coplan. The duo were pals at the Beacon School – a prestigious public high school in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen – and multiple sources say they’...