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    Kalshi Eyes $40 Billion as Trump Jr.'s Free Equity Stake Comes to Light

    The Financial Times revealed Kalshi is in talks to nearly double its valuation to $40 billion — and that Donald Trump Jr. received roughly $300,000 in free equity when he joined as a strategic adviser in early 2025.

    By Prediction Markets US News DeskFriday, June 26, 20266 min read
    Kalshi Eyes $40 Billion as Trump Jr.'s Free Equity Stake Comes to Light

    Kalshi, the federally regulated prediction market platform, is in talks to raise fresh capital at a valuation of approximately $40 billion — a target that would nearly double its worth in under two months — while the Financial Times separately disclosed that Donald Trump Jr. received roughly $300,000 in free equity when he joined the company as a strategic adviser in January 2025.

    The disclosures arrived in a pair of Financial Times reports published June 24–26, 2026, and lit up the financial press: a platform that was worth around $2 billion when Trump Jr. signed on could now be worth $40 billion by the end of the summer.

    The $40 Billion Raise: What the FT Reported

    Kalshi is in talks to close a new funding round at a valuation of roughly $40 billion, according to people familiar with the matter cited by the Financial Times. The round could close as early as the third quarter of 2026.

    If completed at that valuation, the raise would nearly double Kalshi's worth in fewer than two months. The company closed its $1 billion Series F in May at a $22 billion valuation, led by Coatue Management, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, IVP, Paradigm, Morgan Stanley, and ARK Invest.

    At $40 billion, Kalshi would rank just outside the top 15 private companies globally — in the same tier as Canva, which was last valued at approximately $42 billion.

    Kalshi declined to comment to the Financial Times.

    Trump Jr.'s Free Stake: How It Happened

    On January 13, 2025, two weeks before his father's second inauguration, Donald Trump Jr. announced on X that he had joined Kalshi as a strategic adviser. He explained that his family had used the platform on election night to know they had won "hours ahead of the fake news media."

    What he did not disclose publicly at the time: Kalshi granted him approximately $300,000 in equity as compensation for the advisory role, according to the Financial Times. He invested none of his own money.

    The grant was made when Kalshi was valued at under $2 billion. Since then, the company's valuation has risen more than 20-fold — through four fundraising rounds in 18 months — meaning the stake's paper value has grown substantially, even accounting for dilution from subsequent share issuances.

    Trump Jr. also holds a small advisory stake in Polymarket, sitting on both sides of the two dominant US prediction market platforms. That arrangement has drawn ethics scrutiny, particularly given the Trump administration's active role in backing Kalshi's legal position against state regulators.

    Kalshi and spokespeople for Trump Jr. did not respond to requests for comment at the time of the FT's publication.

    Valuation Trajectory: 20x in 18 Months

    Kalshi's valuation climb has been among the steepest in private markets over the past year and a half:

    • January 2025: Under $2 billion (Trump Jr. joins)
    • October 2025: ~$5 billion
    • December 2025: ~$11 billion
    • May 2026: $22 billion (Series F, $1 billion raised)
    • Q3 2026 target: ~$40 billion

    The acceleration is tied directly to trading volume. Kalshi's monthly notional volume reached $17.9 billion in May 2026, up from less than $5 billion a year earlier, according to Token Terminal data cited by the Financial Times. In June 2026, driven by the FIFA World Cup, Kalshi had already booked $21.1 billion in trading volume through mid-month, while rival Polymarket and its US affiliate combined for roughly $9.7 billion.

    Annualized, Kalshi's volume now exceeds $178 billion — more than triple the level from six months ago.

    What the CEO Said on CNBC

    Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box on June 25, 2026, and confirmed the company is thinking about a public offering — but ruled out any IPO in 2026. A listing is more realistic in 2027 or 2028, he said.

    Mansour attributed Kalshi's edge over competitors to a "regulatory first" approach: strict KYC requirements, active market surveillance, and proactive enforcement against members of Congress attempting to trade contracts tied to their own official actions. Kalshi has flagged and fined at least three congressional candidates for betting on their own elections.

    He also identified insider trading as the primary barrier to broader Wall Street adoption of prediction markets — a challenge the company is addressing through its surveillance infrastructure and cooperation with regulators.

    Sports, Parlays, and the Polymarket Gap

    Sports contracts now account for roughly 65% of Kalshi's trading volume, according to the Financial Times. Parlay-style contracts, which Kalshi began offering in September 2025, have proven "wildly popular" — a product category that has contributed meaningfully to the platform's volume surge.

    Kalshi is available to traders in 42 states. Its US rival, Polymarket (operated by QCX LLC under CFTC designation), offers sports-only contracts in 48 states and the District of Columbia.

    By comparison, Polymarket was reportedly in talks to raise $400 million at a $15 billion valuation in April 2026 — less than half Kalshi's current target. The gap between the two platforms has widened considerably since Kalshi's CFTC-regulated status enabled it to attract institutional block trading and algorithmic flow that Polymarket's offshore structure has struggled to match.

    The Regulatory Moat Behind the Numbers

    Kalshi's growth has been powered partly by a favorable regulatory environment under the Trump administration. The CFTC dropped its appeal against Kalshi's congressional election contracts in May 2025, ending a years-long legal battle. The agency has since sued nine states — most recently Kentucky — to block state-level attempts to regulate or tax prediction market operators.

    President Trump has called federal authority over prediction markets "critically important." That political backing has given Kalshi a durable structural advantage: it can operate with CFTC pre-emption protection that state gambling regulators cannot easily pierce.

    At the same time, the Trump Jr. equity disclosure raises governance questions that analysts and ethics watchdogs are beginning to press. A private citizen with advisory ties to Kalshi — and separately to Polymarket — stands to benefit financially as his father's administration actively litigates on these platforms' behalf.

    What This Means for the Market

    For readers trying to assess where prediction markets are heading, the $40 billion figure is both a market signal and a competitive reset:

    • A $40 billion Kalshi is not a startup anymore. At that size, it enters the conversation alongside regulated exchanges and large fintech companies as a candidate for institutional integration, index inclusion, and eventually public markets.
    • The valuation implies investors see a sustainable, growing revenue model — not just a cyclical spike from the World Cup and an NBA season.
    • The Trump Jr. story adds a political dimension that will complicate Kalshi's IPO narrative if it becomes a campaign issue or a target for congressional scrutiny.

    Whether the Q3 round closes at $40 billion or a slightly lower figure, the direction is clear. Kalshi is executing a textbook private-market scaling playbook: raise at successively higher valuations, let volume data justify the multiples, and build toward public markets when the regulatory picture firms up.

    The platforms where you can trade on that eventual IPO? Kalshi and Polymarket, naturally — though no contract on either platform specifically tracks that outcome yet.

    Sources & Verification

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