Gabriel Perez, a technical adviser to President Donald Trump and his teleprompter operator since 2016, has been placed on unpaid administrative leave amid a federal investigation into alleged insider trading on a prediction market.
Federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found that Perez allegedly used advance knowledge of presidential speeches to place winning bets through the prediction market Kalshi.
ABC News first reported the story, revealing that Perez allegedly made more than $100,000 by betting on the specific words and phrases Trump would use in major addresses, including the State of the Union.
Kalshi’s internal surveillance systems flagged a series of unusual trades in March involving markets tied to language expected to appear in Trump’s public remarks.
The trades drew attention because they did not follow typical trading patterns and also prompted complaints from market makers through the platform’s whistleblower channels.
After reviewing account information, Kalshi identified the trader as a federal employee working as a White House teleprompter operator, and subsequently froze the account.
Because the account was frozen before the trader could withdraw most of the alleged profits, more than $90,000 remained on the platform when the matter was referred to federal regulators.
Perez is currently in talks to reach a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the allegations against him.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the matter directly at Thursday’s press briefing, confirming Trump had been personally briefed on the situation.
Leavitt told reporters: “The individual that was cited in that report is complying with the CFTC [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] and has been placed on administrative leave.”
Leavitt described the alleged conduct as “unfortunate” and “a disgrace,” stating that “The White House has extremely strict ethical guidelines with respect to issues like this.”
After initially indicating the leave would be paid, Leavitt later clarified that Perez’s administrative leave would in fact be unpaid, and confirmed a different teleprompter operator would handle Trump’s speech that same evening.
