A White House teleprompter operator is under investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for allegedly using non-public knowledge of President Trump's prepared remarks to profit on Kalshi's 'Mentions' markets, where traders bet on whether specific words or phrases are uttered during a public speech. Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to the president who has operated Trump's teleprompter since 2016, is in talks with federal regulators to settle allegations he won more than $100,000 through the trades. Perez sat for an interview with regulators and acknowledged some of the trades, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
CFTC investigators found Perez placed bets on more than a dozen Trump speeches over a three-month period, including a December primetime address, a January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and Trump's March remarks at a Medal of Honor ceremony. In some instances, Perez backed out of bets mid-speech when Trump skipped over a portion of the prepared remarks that included a word he had wagered would be mentioned. Kalshi's surveillance team flagged the account in March after identifying trades on contracts related to Trump statements that did not follow typical buying and selling patterns; some trades were separately flagged by market makers through whistleblower channels. Using onboarding data, Kalshi identified the account holder as a federal government employee and teleprompter operator, then froze the account, retaining more than $90,000 of the profits. Kalshi's head of enforcement Robert DeNault said in a statement that the company's surveillance team flagged and referred the trades to the CFTC after an exchange investigation and that Kalshi is cooperating with regulators [Source: CNBC].
The CFTC alerted federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who declined to open a criminal investigation. Regulators at the CFTC have expressed willingness to settle and discussed terms that would require Perez to return his profits and refrain from making similar trades. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Perez has been placed on administrative leave and was not handling the teleprompter for Trump's Thursday night address. Leavitt said Trump believes the situation is 'deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace,' and that the individual will no longer be at the White House per a decision by the president [Source: CNBC]. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said the White House has strict ethics guidelines and that the staffer is fully cooperating with the CFTC. Perez's LinkedIn page identifies him as an employee of VIP Prompting, a company that reportedly has operated White House teleprompters since the 1960s. A CFTC spokesperson declined to comment on the investigation.
The case marks the first known instance of officials investigating suspected insider trading on a prediction market from inside the White House. It follows a series of enforcement actions and concerns around the sector: in April, federal prosecutors charged a U.S. Army special forces soldier with making $400,000 on Polymarket ahead of the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, and a Google software engineer was charged with using confidential company information to make $1.2 million on Polymarket by correctly guessing on Google search trends. Former Republican congressman George Santos is under investigation over allegedly pumping up a Kalshi market by claiming he would attend Trump's 2026 State of the Union address, only to cash out on a 'no' trade when he skipped it. In March, White House staff received a memo warning against using nonpublic government information to place bets on Kalshi and its biggest competitor Polymarket, stating it is a criminal offense for anyone inside the White House to buy or sell on the sites. The Senate passed a resolution in April banning all senators from trading on prediction markets, and the House is weighing similar legislation. Kalshi has recently instituted new requirements for traders in certain markets to submit details on their employment status. Ahead of Trump's address to the nation on Thursday, Kalshi traders had wagered more than $800,000 on whether the president would say words including 'Hormuz', 'rigged election', or 'fake news' [Source: NPR].
Sources: Bloomberg, ABC News, CNBC, CNN, NPR, Forbes