Teleprompter operator accused of betting on Trump speeches is out of a job
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- Gabriel Perez, a White House teleprompter operator, is no longer employed by the federal government, according to an unnamed White House official who would not say whether he resigned or was fired.
- Perez had been placed on unpaid leave after ABC News reported he used inside knowledge of Trump's speeches to win more than $100,000 betting on Kalshi's "Mentions" market, including wagers tied to the State of the Union address earlier this year.
- Kalshi head of enforcement Robert Denault said the platform's surveillance team "promptly flagged, investigated and referred these trades" to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
- White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had described the insider-trading reports as "deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace" when confirming the unpaid leave earlier this month.
- Kalshi recently began requiring users to disclose their place of employment, and its policy prohibits betting based on information gained through one's job.
Why it matters: The Kalshi "Mentions" market creates a direct insider-trading vulnerability whenever employees with advance knowledge of speech content can wager on it — and Kalshi's own surveillance team, not a regulator, was the one that flagged and referred the trades to the CFTC, showing the platform is policing itself on a novel market structure.
