White House teleprompter operator fined $172,000 for insider trading on prediction market

A former White House teleprompter operator has been ordered to return $107,539 in profits and pay a $65,000 civil penalty after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) determined he used material, nonpublic information to place trades on a prediction market. Gabriel Perez, who worked as a technical assistant to the president since 2016, made the trades through the platform Kalshi, which the CFTC said assisted in the matter. The regulator classified the activity as insider trading involving contracts that reflected words or phrases the president might use in speeches. Perez was also barred from trading on prediction markets for three years.

"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," said Bobby DeNault, Kalshi’s lead lawyer, in a post on X.

"It doesn’t matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences," DeNault added.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Perez could not be reached. Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previously described the trades as a breach of ethics and said the individual would no longer be employed at the White House.