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Teleprompter operator must surrender $107,539 in prediction-market profits
The CFTC imposed a $65,000 civil penalty and a three-year trading ban after finding he used advance access to presidential speech text to trade “mention market” contracts.
A White House teleprompter operator identified as Gabriel Perez must surrender $107,539.02 in prediction-market profits, after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said he traded on advance access to presidential speeches. The CFTC’s settled administrative order also requires Perez to pay a $65,000 civil monetary penalty, stop further violations, and accept a three-year trading ban.
According to the order, Perez traded presidential “mention market” contracts between December 2025 and February 2026, while working as a White House teleprompter operator. The regulator described the event contracts as swaps that settled on whether the President used specific words or phrases in speeches, and it said Perez saw the speeches before they were delivered.
The CFTC said Perez misappropriated material nonpublic information by breaching a duty of trust and confidence, converting knowledge of the prepared text into more than $107,500 in profit. The agency also said the civil penalty was substantially reduced due to what it characterized as Perez’s exemplary cooperation, and it clarified that the cited materials describe a civil regulatory settlement rather than a criminal conviction.
The CFTC said it appreciated assistance from KalshiEX, and it did not announce charges against the exchange or say it found a surveillance failure. The order also references a prior Associated Press report from July in which Kalshi enforcement head Robert DeNault said the exchange’s surveillance team flagged, investigated, and referred the trades to the CFTC. The CFTC further noted that its February advisory describes designated contract markets’ duty to maintain audit trails and run surveillance against prohibited practices, and that it coordinates with exchanges on referrals.