Justin Mateen, the chief marketing officer of Tinder, has resigned from the company as it scrambles to recover from a sexual harrassment lawsuit.
Mateen’s resignation follows a settlement between Tinder and the accuser, former employee Whitney Wolfe. In the suit, Wolfe alleged that two of her bosses had “pressured her to resign and directed threatening and disparaging comments at her,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Valleywag’s Sam Biddle said a source told him that “Mateen left Tinder prior to the company’s settlement yesterday.”
Here’s how Slate summarizes some of Wolfe’s claims about Mateen’s conduct toward her:
[W]hen “Tinder-related articles appeared in more traditional business outlets, Wolfe’s name was often nowhere to be seen,” the suit claims. “When she would ask why only her name of the five founders was absent they would tell her ‘you’re a girl.’ They stated that they couldn’t include her name in the business press, because it ‘makes the company look like it was an accident.’ ” Worse, showcasing “a female co-founder of Tinder” looked “slutty,’” the suit claims Mateen told her. When one publication proposed a profile of Wolfe, the suit claims that Mateen said Wolfe was only interesting to journalists as a potential sex partner.
Mateen was suspended from Tinder on July 1 after the allegation surfaced. Wolfe left Tinder in April.
Screengrab via Tinder/YouTube