Gabriel Perez, a former White House teleprompter operator, paid a total of $172,539.02 to settle a federal insider trading probe involving bets on Donald Trump's speeches, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced on August 28, 2026 [1].
The CFTC charged Perez with misappropriating material nonpublic information obtained through his role at the White House to place bets on the Kalshi prediction market platform. Perez predicted specific words and phrases Trump would say in speeches between December 2025 and February 2026 using that inside knowledge [1, 2].
Under the settlement, Perez agreed to pay a $65,000 civil penalty and to return $107,539.02 in illicit profits without admitting wrongdoing [3, 1, 2]. The CFTC reduced the penalty due to Perez’s "exemplary cooperation" during the investigation [1]. Perez was also banned from trading on prediction markets for three years as part of the settlement [1, 2].
Perez earned approximately $175,000 annually as a White House teleprompter operator and was placed on unpaid leave in July 2026 after the betting activity was exposed. He left his position around August 2026 amid the ongoing investigation [1, 2].
Kalshi, the prediction market platform, helped regulators by identifying unusual betting patterns that triggered the probe [2].
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the insider trading reports "deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace," reflecting the administration's stance on the case [1].
The CFTC’s public announcement of the settlement on August 28 marks the conclusion of the federal agency’s probe into Perez’s trading activity using nonpublic information from the White House.
