Trump teleprompter operator suspended over betting allegations, White House says

A teleprompter operator for Donald Trump has been suspended over allegations he placed bets with a prediction market on the content of the president’s speeches, the White House said Thursday.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the teleprompter operator was put on unpaid administrative leave on the orders of the president and “will no longer be working at the White House.”

Trump “believes it’s deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace,” Leavitt said of the technician’s alleged actions.

“There are very strict ethical guidelines here at the White House that explicitly state not to do this,” she said.

According to ABC News, 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.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition

by email and never miss our top stories

By signing up, you agree to the terms

Perez placed bets on more than a dozen of Trump’s speeches, ABC News reported, including his 2026 State of the Union address and his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Kalshi alerted the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to what was seen as suspicious activity and Perez, who has been operating Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, is currently in settlement talks with the market regulator, ABC News said.

ABC based its report on multiple sources who have knowledge of the matter but spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the details.

According to the news outlet, investigators discovered instances when Perez canceled his bets mid-speech after Trump deviated from his planned remarks, something he does often.

In April, the White House warned staff against using private information to trade on prediction markets.

Attention on members of the administration profiting from the presidency has reached all the way to Trump himself.

In his most recent disclosures, Trump reported making $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses in 2025, raking in profits while his investors suffered losses in marketplaces that Trump has sought to shield from tighter federal regulation.

Trump got more than $500 million from his World Liberty Financial business selling new crypto products, including “governance tokens,” according to the required annual disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics. It also showed another crypto business, CIC Digital LLC, took in more than $600 million from sales of souvenir-type “meme” coins stamped with his face. Both the tokens and the coins have plunged in value since the sales.

The president has also profited from merchandising deals and high-dollar political and official events at his properties, significantly increasing his net worth since returning to power.

Trump’s aides have stood by his personal and family business practices.

“The president is abiding by all conflict-of-interest laws that are applicable to the president,” Leavitt said earlier this year. It’s “absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.