Trump Teleprompter Operator Allegedly Made $100K Trading Kalshi Speech Markets

President Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator allegedly made more than $100,000 trading Kalshi contracts tied to what Trump would say during more than a dozen speeches, according to an ABC News report published Thursday.

Gabriel Perez allegedly used his advance access to the president’s prepared remarks to trade Kalshi’s mention markets, which allow users to predict whether particular words, phrases or subjects will come up during a speech. The activity, according to the ABC report, spanned about three months and included Trump’s February State of the Union address, a December primetime speech and appearances at the World Economic Forum and a Medal of Honor ceremony.

Kalshi said its own surveillance operation uncovered the activity. Robert DeNault, the exchange’s head of enforcement, said his team flagged and investigated the trades before referring the matter and its evidence to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

“The Kalshi surveillance team promptly flagged, investigated and referred these trades to the CFTC,” DeNault wrote on X. “We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided all evidence that we collected, as we do with any referral.”

Kalshi froze Perez’s account and kept more than $90,000 of the alleged profits on the platform, according to The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

Perez is now reportedly negotiating a civil settlement with the CFTC that could require him to return his profits and refrain from similar trading. ABC reported that Perez acknowledged at least some of the trades during an interview with regulators. The CFTC also alerted federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who declined to open a criminal investigation. No CFTC complaint or settlement has been made public.

Perez allegedly exited trades after Trump skipped scripted lines

Perez’s role gave him access not only to prepared speech texts but also to changes made shortly before Trump spoke. According to ABC News, he was regularly among the last to review the remarks and at times received revisions directly from the president.

That access allegedly remained useful after a speech began. Investigators identified instances in which Perez closed positions after Trump moved past a scripted passage containing a word covered by one of his contracts. Because Trump frequently departs from his prepared text, Perez’s familiarity with the script could have allowed him to recognize sooner than other traders that a predicted word was becoming less likely to be said.

The reported mid-speech trading is potentially more significant than simply knowing the prepared text in advance. It suggests Perez may have been able to use his behind-the-scenes knowledge to limit losses as events unfolded, while other market participants had access only to Trump’s public remarks.

Additional speeches linked to the alleged trading included a January appearance before the Detroit Economic Club, according to ABC. The Financial Times reported that Perez’s trades involved common words and phrases, including country names, economic terms and campaign slogans.

Perez holds senior White House role

Although ABC News described Perez as a technical assistant to the president, White House records identify him by the more senior formal title of deputy assistant to the president and technical adviser. The administration’s latest personnel report, dated July 1, 2026, lists his annual salary as $175,000.

Perez’s public financial disclosure says he joined the current administration on Jan. 21, 2025, after previously serving as a special assistant to the president and technical adviser from 2018 through the end of Trump’s first term. Before returning to the White House, he earned $73,661 from the Republican National Committee and $15,000 from the Trump Vance Inaugural Committee for work identified as teleprompter operation.

ABC reported that Perez has operated Trump’s teleprompter since his first presidential campaign in 2016 and remains in the role. 

“The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told ABC. “The staffer in question is fully cooperating with the CFTC.” 

On March 24, the White House Management Office warned staff against using their government positions or nonpublic information to trade in futures and prediction markets. The warning came during the same month the Financial Times reported that suspicious activity involving Perez was flagged, though there is no indication the two were connected.

Kalshi has expanded market integrity controls

The Perez matter would be the most significant publicly known insider-trading case uncovered on Kalshi. The exchange has spent much of this year expanding and publicizing its market-surveillance operations.

In February, Kalshi appointed DeNault as head of enforcement, formed an independent surveillance advisory committee and added technology from Solidus Labs to supplement its internal monitoring. CEO Tarek Mansour said at the time that the exchange had conducted more than 200 investigations during the previous year, frozen relevant accounts and referred several cases to law enforcement.

Kalshi has also publicly disciplined traders accused of using nonpublic information. Those cases included a video editor who traded contracts tied to unreleased MrBeast content and four political candidates who traded markets connected to their own campaigns. The penalties included financial settlements and suspensions of up to five years.

The exchange added further safeguards in June, including risk scores for markets, employment checks intended to screen potential insiders from certain contracts and expanded tools for reporting suspicious activity. Kalshi said its enforcement team conducted more than 150 investigations in the first quarter, blocked more than 100 potential insider trades and made more than 20 referrals to regulators and law enforcement.

Kalshi announced the new measures after Perez’s alleged trading, and they are not known to have played a role in detecting his account. The Financial Times reported that analysts and market makers flagged the suspicious activity in March, prompting Kalshi to investigate the account and interview Perez before referring the matter to the CFTC.

Previous major insider trading cases involved Polymarket

The Perez allegations follow two larger prediction market insider trading cases brought by federal authorities this year, both involving trades on Polymarket’s global platform.

In May, the CFTC sued Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo, alleging he used confidential information about the company’s 2025 Year in Search rankings to make approximately $1.2 million. Spagnuolo allegedly traded at least 23 related contracts with near-perfect accuracy. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed parallel criminal charges.

A month earlier, the CFTC and Justice Department charged Army Special Forces soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke with using classified information about the U.S. operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Van Dyke, who allegedly helped plan and execute the mission, made more than $404,000 trading related Polymarket contracts, according to the CFTC.

Polymarket said it identified Van Dyke’s account, referred the matter to the Justice Department and cooperated with the investigation. The Perez matter similarly gives Kalshi a high-profile example of its surveillance operation detecting and referring potentially improper trades.

CFTC settlement could test rules on government information

Federal commodities law prohibits trading based on confidential information obtained through fraud or a breach of duty. It also contains a provision specifically barring federal employees from using nonpublic information gained through their government roles to trade commodity interests.

The Perez matter underscores the particular insider trading risks of contracts tied to scripted government events, where a small group may know in advance what the public will hear. Any CFTC settlement could provide a clearer test of how commodities law applies when government employees trade using nonpublic information obtained through their official roles.

The post Trump Teleprompter Operator Allegedly Made $100K Trading Kalshi Speech Markets appeared first on DeFi Rate.