On an unknown date, Gabriel Perez, Trump’s teleprompter operator, made trades on Kalshi via insider information. These trades were made over a three month period of time. Kalshi flagged the trades sometime in March. It specifically flagged trades made in “mention markets,” in which users bet on words in Trump’s speeches.
Kalshi reported its findings to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Despite this, the CFTC has refused to confirm or deny the presence of an investigation. The alleged insider trader is being cooperative with the CFTC.
Perez has made over $90,000 in profits from the illicit trades, though the profits have been frozen. He illegally placed bets related to Trump’s February State of the Union. He was not immediately terminated by the Trump administration, instead being placed on administrative leave. Perez has a lengthy history with Trump, being his teleprompter operator since 2016. He “is often the last person to see Trump’s speeches before he delivers them.” He was hired after the 2016 Trump campaign Googled “teleprompters,” and hired Perez, who was working for VIP Prompting at the time.
Trump praised Perez during an event in Reno on the 2024 campaign trail, saying, “I have a guy, Gabe. He’s excellent. I’ve had some real bad ones, but I have Gabe.”
CNN Politics
The allegations and Trump’s misplaced faith come despite his claim to only hire “the best people.” The administration’s embrace of betting markets, as exhibited by CFTC chair Mike Selig, comes despite Trump’s previous hesitation surrounding betting markets, which mirrors his initial opposition to cryptocurrency, before his embrace of it that allowed him to profit from the Presidency by the billions.
“Well the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino, and you look at what’s going on all over the world in Europe and every place they’re doing these betting things. I was never much in favor of it. I don’t like it conceptually, but it is what it is,” Trump told reporters.
ABC
In October 2025, Trump Media and Technology Group floated creating its own prediction market, which would ostensibly give Trump another means by which to profit from his publicly held office.
