IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Tinder CEO Out After Just Five Months

Tinder CEO Christopher Payne is out after just five months leading the dating-app company, Tinder announced late Wednesday.
Get more newsLiveon

Tinder CEO Christopher Payne is out after just five months leading the dating-app company, Tinder announced late Wednesday.

Payne, a former eBay executive, had taken the helm in March. Tinder co-founder Sean Rad, who had been serving as company president, will reclaim the CEO role after stepping down from the position in November.

Tinder didn't specify the exact reason for the shakeup, but several quotes from executives provided in the company's press release said Payne and Tinder simply weren't a match.

"It's only been a few months, but there was mutual agreement here that it was not the right long-term fit," Benchmark Capital's Matt Cohler, a Tinder director, said in the release.

Related: Tinder vs. Vanity Fair: Dating App Says It 'Overreacted'

A statement from Payne echoed that sentiment: "I enjoyed my time at Tinder but we mutually determined that this wasn't going to be optimal and thought that a quick transition served everybody best. I think Tinder's going to be an incredible company."

Payne's exit caps a difficult week for Tinder. On Tuesday the dating app's social-media team was roundly criticized for posting more than two dozen tweets in response to a Vanity Fair article titled "Tinder and the Dawn of the 'Dating Apocalypse" by Nancy Jo Sales. Critics slammed Tinder for the tone of the tweets, which lambasted Sales for "one-sided journalism" and an "incredibly biased view." One day later Tinder executives sheepishly acknowledged the team had "overreacted."

Meanwhile, Rad returns to the CEO spot after a fraught previous tenure in the role. In summer 2014 Tinder's former vice president of marketing Whitney Wolfe named Rad in a lawsuit with the company’s chief marketing officer, Justin Mateen. Wolfe alleged Mateen, with whom she had a brief romantic relationship, sexually harassed her verbally and through text messages. Rad was accused of ignoring Wolfe's complaints about Mateen and using inappropriate language toward her himself. Tinder's parent company, IAC, settled with Wolfe and Mateen was forced to exit Tinder.