Ex-White House teleprompter operator ordered to pay $172,000 for Trump speech bets

A former White House teleprompter operator has been ordered to pay more than $172,000 (£127,000) for using inside information to bet on US President Donald Trump’s speeches.

Gabriel Perez was found to have made trades on what the president would say during addresses between December 2025 and February 2026 on Kalshi – a prediction markets platform where users can bet on real-world events.

Its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said Perez would have to surrender profits of $107,539.02 (£79,452) and pay a civil penalty of $65,000 (£48,000).

The White House has not yet commented. In July, then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Perez was on unpaid leave and would not return to his post.

Announcing the settlement on Friday, the CFTC said Perez had “misappropriated” his prior knowledge of Trump’s speeches to place bets “in breach of his duty of trust and confidence”.

It said his civil penalty had been reduced due to his “exemplary co-operation” with the investigation.

Perez has also been banned from trading for three years.

Writing on X, Kalshi’s lead lawyer Bobby DeNault welcomed the decision: “It doesn’t matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences.”

The company previously told the BBC its analysts had noticed unusual betting on “mention markets” – contracts where users predict whether a speaker will use common terms, such as specific countries, campaign slogans or words – in March.

It said it had used account data to find that the user was a federal employee operating White House teleprompters, and had reported the activity to the regulator.

“The words of political leaders like Presidents and Fed chairs cause billions of dollars of movement in FX markets, oil futures, [and] the stock market,” it said in a statement in July.

The same month, the White House Management Office had sent a letter to aides telling them not to place bets on prediction markets, administration officials told the BBC’s US media partner CBS News.