Gabriel Perez, the technical assistant who has operated Trump's teleprompter since 2016, bet on more than a dozen of Trump's speeches on the prediction market Kalshi, Commodity Futures Trading Commission investigators found, according to sources who spoke to ABC News on July 16, 2026. ABC's sources said Perez was believed to have made tens of thousands of dollars and was in talks to settle allegations that he used inside knowledge of the speeches to win more than $100,000.
The bets were placed on Kalshi's “Mentions” market, where users wager on whether specific words, phrases or topics are uttered during a public speech. According to ABC's sources, Perez typically had the final eyes on nearly all of the president's prepared remarks, and the speeches he bet on included February's State of the Union. Kalshi said its surveillance team flagged the trades and referred them to the CFTC, and froze his account. ABC reported that federal prosecutors in Manhattan, alerted by the CFTC, declined to open a criminal investigation.
After ABC's report, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Perez had been put on unpaid administrative leave, and that Trump thought the conduct was a “disgrace” and made the decision himself. Leavitt said she was unaware of other White House staffers making such trades. In March, the White House had warned staff against using nonpublic information to bet on prediction markets.
Update (October 2, 2026): A White House official said in July that Perez was no longer in his position. On August 28, the CFTC announced a settlement ordering Perez to surrender $107,539 in trading profits, pay a $65,000 civil penalty and accept a three-year trading ban. The commission found that between December 2025 and February 2026 he traded contracts on words Trump might use in speeches, and said that “Perez had access to presidential speeches prior to those speeches being delivered and Perez misappropriated that information.” The episode joins other insider-information questions around this administration (see A Suspicious $580 Million Oil Futures Trade Was Made 15 Minutes Before Trump's Iran Reversal, and the CFTC Is Now Investigating a Pattern and Trump's Pre-Market Iran Posts Coincided With a $900 Billion Swing and a $3 Trillion Move in 56 Minutes; Whether They Were Timed to Move Markets Is Unproven).
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry said CFTC investigators found Perez made more than $100,000. ABC's sources said investigators believed he made tens of thousands of dollars while he negotiated over allegations that he won more than $100,000; the CFTC's August settlement later put his trading profits at $107,539.