Trump's longtime teleprompter operator accused of using insider knowledge to place bets on Kalshi: ABC News

President Donald Trump's teleprompter operator is under scrutiny following a report alleging that he made hundreds of thousands of dollars by using insider knowledge to place bets on Kalshi about what the president would say during his State of the Union address.

On Thursday, ABC News reported that Gabriel Perez, who has operated President Trump's teleprompter for about a decade, is in negotiations with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over allegations that he used insider knowledge to place bets on Trump's speeches.

Those bets were made over three months, including a speech Trump made in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. At different points, Perez adapted to Trump's frequent deviations from the teleprompter and would allegedly "back out of certain bets mid-speech," ABC News reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

Kalshi alerted the CFTC to the suspicious trading activity, according to the report. The company told ABC News that its surveillance team quickly flagged the trades and referred the matter to regulators.

The White House and Kalshi did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Block.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told ABC News that the White House has "strict ethics guidelines." White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Perez is on paid administrative leave, during a press briefing on Thursday.

"Obviously I'm aware of the report, the president is too, I spoke with him about it," she said. "He believes it's deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace."

In an emailed statement to the Block,  a CFTC spokesperson said the agency "can't confirm or deny an investigation."

The allegations come as prediction markets have exploded in popularity, with billions of dollars wagered on the outcomes of elections, economic data, sporting events, and other real-world events. But their rapid growth has also raised questions about how to regulate those markets.

In January, lawmakers raised alarms after a Polymarket account wagered that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be "out" by the end of this month, netting $400,000. Prosecutors subsequently arrested active-duty U.S. Army Soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, for allegedly using confidential information to place that bet.

In May, the U.S. charged a software engineer at Google with using internal search data to make $1.2 million on Polymarket.

Since then, lawmakers have introduced legislation to block elected officials and others from making certain bets on prediction markets around government policy and government action. The Senate has also banned itself from trading on prediction markets.

Meanwhile, Polymarket and Kalshi have put out measures over the past few months to prevent insider trading.

Updated at 6 p.m. UTC to include comments from Leavitt