> A shell company is a well understood concept that can be assessed in a reasonably objective manner.

Well, that's my point: a shell company doesn't do any substantial business involving customers, payroll, etc, while Polymarket does seem to be actually operating a business. The "shell company" appellation implies that Polymarket is merely a cover for hiding wealth. Actually, NPR doesn't even make the claim that Polymarket is a shell company, but just trots out a fact about shell companies without any particular connection to Polymarket in the middle of this article! It's an implication without any attempt to provide backing facts, and they technically said nothing in this about Polymarket that needs to be sourced:

> Corporate law experts say while there is nothing illegal about housing a business inside a shell company, the practice is often a strategic move to protect a firm's wealth or shield it against lawsuits and action from government regulators.

I don't use Polymarket and may be a bit biased against them due to their X posting, but I used to work at NPR and am fairly dejected about how far they've gone in the past 10 years.