White House Directive Bans Staff Use of Nonpublic Info for Bets

The White House issued an internal directive on March 24, warning staff members against using nonpublic information to place bets on prediction platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket or to trade in financial markets. The email, sent a day after President Donald Trump announced a five-day pause on threats to target Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure, aimed to reinforce existing ethical guidelines amid concerns over potential insider trading.

Trump's announcement came via a social media post on March 23, where he cited recent productive conversations with Tehran as the reason for the temporary halt. However, trading data showed unusual activity in oil and stock futures just 15 minutes prior. Between 6:49 a.m. and 6:50 a.m. New York time, approximately 6,200 contracts for Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude changed hands, representing a notional value of around $580 million to $760 million. This volume far exceeded the average of about 700 contracts during the same period over the previous five trading days. Following the post at roughly 7:05 a.m., crude oil prices dropped more than 15 percent, while equities rose sharply.

The directive followed reports of similar...