Prediction market Kalshi granted Donald Trump Jr. about $300,000 worth of shares after he became a strategic adviser to the company early last year, according to a report.
Kalshi’s compensation to the president’s eldest son came when the startup was valued at less than $2 billion — or under a tenth of its $22 billion price tag in a financing round last month — the Financial Times reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Trump Jr.’s stake is poised to rise in value as Kalshi is in talks to raise funds at a valuation of about $40 billion – which could happen as soon as the third quarter of this year, the FT reported.
As Kalshi has grown, the presidential scion’s shares have been diluted, the outlet noted, making it hard to determine their exact value today.
Kalshi declined to comment to the FT and Trump Jr. did not respond to the paper.
Kalshi and its chief rival Polymarket let bettors wager on binary outcomes on everything from the weather to which team will win the World Cup.
Two months after his father retook the White House, Trump Jr. signed on as a strategic adviser to the company. Announcing the move in a January 2025 post on X, he wrote that “while biased outlets called the race a coin toss, my family and close friends used prediction market @Kalshi to know we had won hours ahead of the fake news media.”
Trump Jr. also joined Polymarket’s advisory board last August.
The appointment coincided with a strategic investment in the company by 1789 Capital, the investment firm where he is a partner, for an undisclosed amount.
Kalshi, led by CEO Tarek Mansour, has faced a light regulatory touch under US agencies now led by Trump appointees, according to the FT.
Before Trump’s election victory, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission had sought to block it from offering event contracts tied to congressional elections. Kalshi secured a court victory shortly before Election Day, and in May 2025 the CFTC abandoned its appeal.
As for Polymarket, the CFTC and the Department of Justice closed an investigation in summer 2025 into whether it had illegally accepted wagers from US customers in spite of restrictions on the practice.
The Post has sought comment from Kalshi and Trump Jr.
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