The White House has placed Gabriel Perez, the teleprompter operator who has worked for Donald Trump since 2016, on unpaid administrative leave and is terminating his employment after federal regulators opened an investigation into allegations that he used inside information to earn more than $100,000 by betting on the content of the president’s speeches. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is examining trades placed on the Kalshi prediction market platform, where users can wager on whether specific words or phrases will be uttered during public addresses. According to sources familiar with the probe, Perez had access to final drafts and last-minute edits of Trump’s remarks, including the State of the Union address and a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that President Trump considered the matter “deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace,” and that the aide would no longer work at the White House. The administration pointed to strict ethics guidelines that explicitly prohibit the misuse of nonpublic information. Kalshi’s head of enforcement, Robert DeNault, confirmed that the platform’s surveillance team flagged the suspicious trades in March after detecting patterns inconsistent with normal market activity. The company froze more than $90,000 in profits before they could be withdrawn and referred the case to the CFTC. Perez is said to be cooperating with regulators and is in settlement talks that could require him to disgorge his gains and accept a ban on future trading.

The case is the first known instance of a White House staffer facing allegations of insider trading on prediction markets, a sector that has grown rapidly in the United States since a landmark court ruling in 2024. Viewed from Washington, the episode intensifies scrutiny of a market structure that critics argue is vulnerable to abuse by government insiders. In April, the US Senate passed a resolution prohibiting senators from trading on such platforms, and the House is considering similar legislation. The Justice Department has separately charged a special operations soldier with using classified military information to profit on Polymarket, a rival platform, in connection with the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The CFTC, which regulates Kalshi as a derivatives exchange, has faced pressure to tighten oversight even as the Trump administration has generally championed prediction markets. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., serves as an adviser to Kalshi. The White House had already circulated an internal memo in late March warning staff that trading on nonpublic information would not be tolerated. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan reviewed the Perez matter but declined to open a criminal case, leaving the CFTC to pursue a civil resolution. The investigation remains ongoing, and no final settlement has been announced.