Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator has been placed on administrative leave after reports suggested that he used his position to profit from wagers on the president’s speeches through the online prediction market Kalshi.
The White House confirmed the development on Thursday, according to ABC News. Gabriel Perez, who has worked as Trump’s teleprompter operator since his 2016 presidential campaign, is accused of earning nearly $100,000 by placing bets tied to the president’s public remarks.
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Kalshi is a federally regulated prediction market in the United States. According to the report, Perez is currently under investigation by the US Commodity Futures Commission (CFTC) over the allegations.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump had been informed about the matter and personally approved the decision to place Gabriel Perez on unpaid administrative leave.
Calling the allegations “deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace”, Leavitt said Perez had been relieved of his duties pending the investigation. She added that a different teleprompter operator would assist the president during his Thursday evening address to the nation on election integrity. “The White House has extremely strict ethical guidelines with respect to issues like this,” she added.
According to sources familiar with the investigation cited by ABC News, Gabriel Perez was in talks with federal regulators to resolve allegations that he used advance knowledge of President Donald Trump’s speeches to earn more than $100,000 through trades on the prediction market.
A source related to this matter told CNN that Perez made over $ 90,000 from the trades under investigation, although those profits have since been frozen.
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The reports allege that Perez placed bets based on non-public information about the president’s planned remarks, including the State of the Union address earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Associated Press reported that Robert Denault, Kalshi’s lawyer and head of enforcement, said on X that the platform’s surveillance team “promptly flagged, investigated and referred these trades” to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency responsible for overseeing such matters.
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