Kalshi ends advisory contract with Donald Trump Jr. after his firm invested in rival Polymarket
Prediction market platform Kalshi has terminated its advisory contract with Donald Trump Jr. A company spokesperson said the two sides agreed to end Don’s advisory role because his venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, made a major investment in rival Polymarket this summer and led the latter’s latest funding round. Related discussions began in August.
Trump Jr. was appointed Kalshi’s strategic advisor in January 2025, when he received company equity worth about $300,000. He also serves as an advisor to Polymarket, and 1789 Capital’s investment in Polymarket was about $300 million as part of a roughly $1 billion funding round. A Kalshi spokesperson emphasized that the decision had no political considerations and thanked Trump Jr. for his contribution to expanding customers.
The event came after Democrats won the midterm elections, and some sources mentioned that there had been internal concerns about the political environment, but Kalshi officially attributed the termination to a conflict of interest. Trump Jr. still retains his Polymarket advisory role.
Source: Exclusive Reuters report; paraphrases of the Kalshi spokesperson’s statement by CNBC, The Guardian, The Hill, Politico, Forbes, and others.
ABAB AI Insight
Competition in the prediction market sector has expanded from product and regulatory competition into the exclusivity of capital and advisory networks. 1789 Capital is deeply tied to both platforms at the same time, forcing Kalshi to split with it under the name of a conflict of interest; in substance, this is to prevent a competitor from using the same political capital network to gain an information asymmetry advantage. The termination of the advisory role exposes the fragility of the industry’s balance between political endorsement and capital neutrality during a period of rapid expansion, and may in the future push platforms toward stricter conflict disclosure and advisor separation mechanisms.