By Anirban Sen and Pritam Biswas
July 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's longtime teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez is under investigation by federal regulators over potential insider trading on prediction market platform Kalshi, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Kalshi identified the suspicious trading activity through information collected as part of its customer onboarding and market surveillance processes and referred the matter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
(CFTC), one of the sources said.
"Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC after an exchange investigation. We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided evidence we collected, as we do in any referral," Robert DeNault, head of enforcement at Kalshi, told Reuters in a statement.
Perez, the teleprompter operator, is fully cooperating with the CFTC on this matter, the second person said. The sources requested anonymity because the matter is confidential.
The President is aware of the teleprompter operator, and the staffer is now on unpaid leave, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday.
Leavitt later added that Perez will no longer be working at the White House.
"The CFTC can't confirm or deny an investigation," a spokesperson for the regulator said.
Kalshi's mention markets include contracts that allow traders to wager on whether a specific word or phrase will be said during public events such as speeches, broadcasts or corporate earnings calls.
Such markets have faced regulatory scrutiny, including from the CFTC over concerns that they could be vulnerable to insider trading or manipulation by people with advance access to prepared remarks or speech transcripts.
Kalshi froze the account, and the account holder was caught before the profits, which were somewhere over $90,000, were taken off the platform, according to the source.
The internal investigation included an interview with the trader, and market makers also reported potential irregularities in several mention-market trades through whistleblower channels, the first source added.
Kalshi had said in June that it would mandate employment disclosures for users trading on sensitive contracts and launch a whistleblower portal, steps aimed at aligning the platform with regulatory expectations for market integrity.
Prediction market startups such as Kalshi and Polymarket have been battling regulatory risks for years now, including concerns over market manipulation and insider trading.
These platforms allow users to trade contracts tied to the outcome of future events such as sports, election outcomes and weather.
ABC News reported the CFTC investigation earlier on Thursday.
(Reporting by Pritam Biswas in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Nandita Bose and Susan Heavey in Washington DC; Editing by Leroy Leo)
