A teleprompter operator for President Donald Trump has been placed on unpaid leave amid an investigation into alleged bets on the prediction market exchange Kalshi.
ABC News reports that teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez is at the center of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission investigation into the alleged bets. Sources familiar with the matter told ABC News that Perez is in talks to settle allegations that he used inside knowledge of Trump's speeches to win over $100,000.
During a press briefing Thursday White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said she had spoken with the president about the report . “He believes it’s deeply unfortunate, and, frankly, a disgrace,” she said. Leavitt said that the individual cited in that report is complying with the CFTC.
“The White House has extremely strict ethical guidelines with respect to issues like this,” she added, noting that the individual is on unpaid administrative leave.
Kalshi has not yet responded to a request for comment from InvestmentNews, but in a statement on X, Robert Denault, Kalshi’s head of enforcement and legal counsel, said that the company’s surveillance team promptly flagged, investigated and referred trades to the CFTC. “We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided all evidence that we collected, as we do with any referral,” he wrote. Denault’s statement did not name Perez.
The CFTC told InvestmentNews that it can neither confirm nor deny the investigation.
The White House referred InvestmentNews to Leavitt’s press briefing comments.
There was no response from Perez to a request for comment sent via the White House.
In April the U.S. Senate banned members from prediction markets amid insider trading concerns, and growing regulatory and legal pressure. The same month, Kalshi said it had suspended and fined three congressional candidates for trading on contracts tied to races they were involved in.
Read more: You can't beat the house: A portfolio manager's POV on prediction markets and sports betting
More recently, Goldman Sachs issued a policy restricting its own employees from trading on certain prediction markets involving specific companies, electoral outcomes, financial market performance, macroeconomic data, and geopolitics, with repeated violations potentially punishable by dismissal.
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