(AFP) – US President Donald Trump has suspended a teleprompter operator over allegations he placed bets with a prediction market on the content of Trump’s speeches, the White House said Thursday. Gabriel Perez allegedly made more than $100,000 with bets placed on the prediction market Kalshi about specific words or phrases that would appear in the president’s speeches, ABC News reported.
“I’m aware of the report, the president is too, I spoke with him about it. He believes it’s deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. The teleprompter operator was put on unpaid administrative leave and “will no longer be working at the White House,” Leavitt added. “That was a decision by the president. So I think that speaks for itself,” she added.
Kalshi said it had alerted its US regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), to suspicious activity related to Trump speeches that “jumped out” to analysts. “Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC after an exchange investigation,” Robert DeNault, head of enforcement at Kalshi, said in a statement to AFP. “We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided evidence we collected, as we do in any referral.” More than $90,000 in profits made by the teleprompter operator had been frozen in his account before he could withdraw it from the platform, and he is currently in talks on a settlement, Kalshi said.
– ‘Strict ethical guidelines’ –
Perez, who has operated Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, made bets on speeches including the State of the Union address in February, remarks to the Davos forum in Switzerland, and a December primetime address, ABC said. The operator even backed out of certain bets mid-speech when Trump veered off script and skipped over a part that included a word Perez had placed a bet on Trump mentioning, the broadcaster said.
The report came just hours before Trump was due to deliver another address to the nation on Thursday that the White House said would focus on protecting the integrity of US elections. “So there will be a teleprompter operator tonight, of course — but it will not be the one, unfortunately, in that story,” Leavitt said. Prediction markets have faced increasing scrutiny in the United States over insider trading allegations and are banned in some other countries.
A US soldier is facing federal charges for using classified information to bet on online prediction markets related to the operation in January to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. He allegedly made more than $400,000. The White House insisted it had safeguards in place. “There are very strict ethical guidelines here at the White House that explicitly state not to do this,” Leavitt said. Despite that, Trump’s own son Don Jr. has been an advisor for Kalshi since January 2025. He hailed the prediction market after it correctly called the 2024 election for his father.
– Danny KEMP
© 2024 AFP
