Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg approached prediction-market leader Kalshi about a takeover before ordering his own team to build a competing app, according to a new report.
Zuckerberg met Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour about a buyout in 2025, but talks stalled and never reached a formal offerMeta is now building a play-money prediction app, Arena, sidestepping the gambling classification dogging Kalshi and PolymarketKalshi raised $1B in May at a $22B valuation, double its $11B mark five months earlier
How a buy-then-build turned into a contested market Last year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) argued at trial last year that Meta runs a “buy or bury” strategy, either acquiring young rivals or cloning them to squeeze them out. A judge sided with Zuckerberg’s company, finding it broke no competition law in acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp; the FTC is appealing. Meta also struck a partnership with Kalshi in March, allowing its markets to integrate with the Threads app. Now, it seems the calculus moved from “buy” to “bury.”
