Trump's Former Teleprompter Operator Will Pay $172,500 for Betting on the Words in Speeches He Read First

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced Friday that Gabriel Perez, a former White House teleprompter operator, will surrender more than $100,000 in profits, pay a $65,000 civil penalty and accept a three-year trading ban to settle claims that he used nonpublic information to bet on the prediction market Kalshi. The commission found Perez made $107,500 between December 2025 and February 2026 wagering on words and phrases that would appear in Trump's speeches, and said he had access to those speeches before delivery and "misappropriated that information in breach of his duty of trust and confidence." The penalty was reduced for what the commission called exemplary cooperation.

The case turns a White House support job into a tradable information advantage, and shows that ordinary staff access to presidential text carries market value that existing controls did not catch.

Perez was placed on unpaid leave in July and a White House official later said he was no longer in his position, without saying whether he was fired or resigned. Kalshi said its surveillance flagged the trades, froze more than $90,000 and referred the matter to the CFTC. The White House Management Office had warned aides in March against betting on prediction markets.