Trump Teleprompter Aide Fined $172K for Speech Bets
Trump Teleprompter Aide Fined $172K for Speech Bets
The News
Gabriel Perez, President Donald Trump's longtime teleprompter operator, was ordered Friday to pay $172,539 for using advance access to Trump's speeches to place bets on a prediction market.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Perez used "material, nonpublic information" from his White House job to trade on Kalshi, and called it insider trading.
The payment breaks down as $107,539.02 in trading profits handed back plus a $65,000 civil penalty. Perez is also barred from trading on prediction markets for three years.
What He Traded
According to the CFTC, Perez traded "presidential mention market contracts" — event contracts that pay out based on words or phrases the president uses during his speeches. As the man loading Trump's remarks into the teleprompter, he knew what was coming.
Perez was a technical assistant to the president and had operated Trump's teleprompter since 2016.
Timeline
Perez begins working as a teleprompter operator for Trump.
The trades become public. Perez is placed on leave, and then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says "this individual will no longer be here."
The CFTC announces the order — $107,539.02 in disgorgement, a $65,000 civil penalty and a three-year prediction-market trading ban.
Reactions
Kalshi said its own surveillance operation flagged the trades. "A Kalshi surveillance investigation caught a White House staffer engaging in prohibited trading activity. Today this individual was subjected to penalties by the CFTC and by our exchange," the exchange's lead lawyer, Bobby DeNault, wrote on X. "It doesn't matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences."
Leavitt in July called the trades a breach of ethics and "deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace."
The CFTC credited Perez's "exemplary cooperation" when it announced the penalties.
What's Next
Perez's three-year ban from prediction markets runs from the CFTC's order. The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News' request for comment Friday night, and Perez could not be reached.
More
The case is an early test of how federal regulators police prediction markets now that contracts on political speech and events trade openly in the US. The CFTC said Kalshi assisted in the matter.
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