Donald Trump Jr. is no longer an adviser to Kalshi, the prediction market, which said the two sides agreed to end the role after his venture capital firm made a significant investment in rival Polymarket.
Prediction markets are platforms where users trade contracts on the outcome of real-world events. Kalshi and Polymarket compete for the same customers.
In a statement this week, Kalshi said: "We have mutually agreed to end Don's advisory role after his firm's significant investment in a competitor this past summer." The company added that it was grateful for his help in marketing Kalshi to more customers. The statement does not say the investment was the reason for the split, only that the split came after it.
The departure may not sever the financial tie. Trump Jr. may still have a stake in Kalshi. According to reporting in June, he was handed about $300,000 worth of equity after joining as a strategic adviser in early 2025. Kalshi has also benefited from the Trump administration's legal and regulatory support for prediction markets, which is the backdrop for any link between the president's son and the industry.
The sequence is the useful part. An adviser's job is to promote a company and steer it, and a firm that funds the company's direct competitor makes that job awkward in any industry. Kalshi's wording frames the exit as a tidy, shared decision rather than a dispute, and it does not address the equity at all.
That leaves the open question: whether an adviser who has left still holds a stake in the company he used to promote, and whether either side will say so.