Donald Trump's teleprompter operator bet on his speeches - and will pay $172,000
Former White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez has been ordered to pay over $172,000 for using inside information to bet on the speeches of US President Donald Trump.
Gabriel Perez, a former teleprompter operator at the White House, has been ordered to pay more than $172,000 after using inside information to bet on the speeches of US President Donald Trump. This is according to a report by the BBC.
The White House has yet to comment on the matter. In July, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that Perez had been placed on unpaid leave and would not return to his position.
Perez was found guilty of executing trades based on what Donald Trump was expected to say in speeches delivered between December 2025 and February 2026 on the Kalshi platform — a prediction market where users can bet on real-world events. The platform's regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated that Perez would be required to disgorge profits totaling $107,539.02 and pay a civil penalty of $65,000.
In an announcement regarding the settlement on Friday, the CFTC stated that Perez "unlawfully used" knowledge he possessed in advance about Donald Trump's speeches to place bets, "in violation of his duty of trust and confidentiality." The agency added that the civil penalty imposed on him was reduced due to his "extraordinary cooperation" in the investigation. Perez has also been banned from trading for three years.
Bobby De-Nault, Kalshi's chief legal officer, welcomed the decision in a post on X:
"It doesn't matter who you are: break our rules or federal law - and you will face the consequences."
The company previously told the BBC that its analysts noticed unusual betting in March on "mention markets" — contracts where users bet on whether a specific speaker will use common terms, such as names of certain countries, campaign slogans, or other words. Kalshi stated that it used account data to discover that the user was a federal employee who operated the teleprompters at the White House, and reported the activity to the regulator.
"The words of political leaders like presidents and Federal Reserve chairs move billions of dollars in forex, oil futures, and stock markets," the company said in a statement in July. That same month, the White House Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to aides instructing them not to bet on prediction markets, government officials told CBS News.
