Donald Trump Jr., prediction market Kalshi sever ties

Nov. 13 (UPI) — The prediction market Kalshi said Thursday that Donald Trump Jr. will no longer serve as an adviser after his company heavily invested in its competitor.

Trump Jr. has agreed to part ways with Kalshi after his investment firm, 1789 Capital, invested heavily in Polymarket, The New York Times reported. Trump Jr.’s spokesperson confirmed to The Times that the split was mutual.

When Kalshi hired Trump Jr. in January 2025, it gave him shares of the company, now estimated to be worth millions, as part of his compensation package. It’s unclear if he will keep them.

Kalshi and Trump Jr. began having conversations about his exit in August after 1789 announced it had bought about $300 million in Polymarket on top of its earlier buy-in of $200 million, Kalshi’s spokesperson told CNBC. The two sides agreed that it was a conflict of interests to keep him as an adviser.

“Both parties understood that advising two competitors in a growing sector was complicating things,” the company said in a statement.

In October, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour told MS NOW that Trump Jr.’s connection to the company creates an “optics issue.” But, he said, the company has never relied on that relationship to gain favor with the government, CNBC reported.

President Donald Trump’s administration has advocated heavily for prediction markets, but some incoming Democratic lawmakers have vowed to investigate regulatory approvals that Kalshi has gotten from the administration.

Since May, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has begun allowing Kalshi to offer perpetuals trading, which has never been allowed in the United States, The Times reported. Perpetuals allow customers to bet on the prices of individual stocks, cryptocurrencies or other assets without buying them. So, customers could bet that, for example, shares of Tesla will fall, and make money if they do.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Cboe Global Markets have filed suit against the CFTC, saying that allowing prediction markets to do so violates federal laws that protect investors from insider trading, market manipulation and other abuses.