Zuckerberg Met Kalshi CEO on Buyout in 2025, Meta Now Builds Play-Money Prediction App Arena

According to NPR, Zuckerberg met Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour in 2025 to discuss acquiring the prediction exchange, but talks never advanced to a formal offer. Sources disagreed on why negotiations collapsed: some said Mansour was unwilling to sell, while others said Meta determined the legal and regulatory risks too complex.

Instead, Meta is building Arena, a standalone app using play money rather than real-cash wagers to sidestep gambling classification challenges facing Kalshi and Polymarket. Kalshi raised $1 billion in May at a $22 billion valuation, more than doubling its prior $11 billion mark five months earlier.