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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Luana Lopes Lara.md Normal file
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---
aliases:
- Luana Lopes Lara
- Luana Lara
- "Lopes Lara, Luana"
- "Lopes-Lara, Luana"
- "Luana Lopez Lara"
- "Luana Lara Lopes"
category: "Business & Finance"
tags:
- Person
- LuanaLopesLara
- Kalshi
- PredictionMarkets
- MIT
- YCombinator
- Brazil
- Ballet
- Billionaires
summary: "Co-founder and chief operating officer of Kalshi, a native of Joinville, Brazil, who trained with the Bolshoi Theatre School in Joinville, danced in Austria and studied computer science at MIT."
location: "New York, New York"
created: 2026-10-13
updated: 2026-10-13
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Kalshi]]"
role: "co-founder"
start: 2018
fn: 2
- type: head_of
with: "[[Kalshi]]"
role: "chief operating officer, as self-reported in FEC records"
start: 2026-07
fn: 13
- type: director_of
with: "[[Kalshi]]"
role: "director, listed on Form D filings"
start: 2020-03
fn: 2
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Tarek Mansour]]"
role: "co-founder of Kalshi"
start: 2018
fn: 15
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Y Combinator]]"
role: "office-hours team at the October 2018 hackathon; Winter 2019 batch (W19)"
start: 2018-10
fn: 10
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]"
role: "student; bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science"
start: 2014
fn: 4
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Salzburger Landestheater]]"
role: "professional dancer; performed in Swan Lake, per Bora Investir"
start: 2014
fn: 3
---
Luana Lopes Lara is the co-founder and chief operating officer of [[Kalshi]]. She is a native of Joinville, in Santa Catarina, [[Brazil]], trained as a professional ballerina, and studied at [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]. She co-founded the company with her MIT classmate [[Tarek Mansour]]. Form D filings give 2018 as the year of incorporation, while Bora Investir gives January 2019 as the founding date.[^1][^2][^3]
### Early life and ballet
Bora Investir, the B3 investor-education site, says she is a native of Joinville and was part of the "Escola do Teatro Bolshoi no Brasil."[^3] Olhar Digital places the school in Joinville: "Antes de ingressar no MIT, em 2014, Luana teve passagem pela Escola de Teatro Bolshoi em Joinville."[^4] On April 20, 2014 the Brazilian talk show De Frente Com Gabi aired an interview with her, described in its listing as a 17-year-old ballerina admitted to MIT's engineering program.[^5] Forbes's profile says she trained as a professional ballerina after high school and performed in a season of Swan Lake in Austria.[^6] Bora Investir says she became a professional dancer of the [[Salzburger Landestheater]] in Austria and performed in Swan Lake ("O Lago dos Cisnes") in mid-2014.[^3] Olhar Digital also says she worked as a professional dancer in Austria.[^4]
### MIT
Olhar Digital says she entered MIT in 2014 and graduated in computer science, and that she worked at Bridgewater and Citadel while still an undergraduate.[^4] Bora Investir describes a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science.[^3] Forbes's profile lists a bachelor's degree from MIT.[^6] In the fall 2024 lecture in course 18.642, Tarek Mansour said that Lopes Lara had guest-lectured the course the year before.[^7] Bloomberg Línea reports that she met Mansour at MIT as an undergraduate and that the two worked in an MIT artificial intelligence laboratory.[^8]
### Jobs before Kalshi
Forbes's profile gives her pre-Kalshi role as a quantitative trader at [[Citadel Securities]].[^6] Inc. reports that her interest in prediction markets grew out of internships at quantitative trading firms, naming [[Bridgewater Associates]], [[Five Rings Capital]] and Citadel Securities, and that these roles made her question her career path. She recalled asking herself, "When I’m 50, am I going to be happy?" and said the answer was no.[^9] Bora Investir lists [[Anheuser-Busch InBev]] among her employers, without roles or dates.[^3]
### Origin of the idea and the Y Combinator hackathon
Olhar Digital says the concept arose during the period in 2018 when both founders interned in New York, when they noticed that many financial decisions depended on forecasts about outside events.[^4] Bloomberg Línea describes the proposal as letting investors trade directly on the outcomes of events as a hedge, instead of through financial products that only approximated that exposure.[^8]
The [[Y Combinator]] hackathon recap, dated October 8, 2018, lists "Kalshi" with the description "Opinion gathering platform" under "Three teams won office hours." The team members are Tarek Mansour, Luana Lopes Lara and [[Duncan Cock Foster]].[^10] Y Combinator's company page lists her as a founder in the Winter 2019 batch (W19).[^11] Mansour's March 20, 2025 post on X referred to the company's origin story and said he would share "how we met and Kalshi’s origin story."[^12]
### Public statements
Inc. quotes her: "The biggest dream of ours was having election markets legal in the U.S."[^9] Bloomberg Línea reports that in a 2022 Bloomberg News interview she said a company can reach the market faster on the unregulated path, and that on the regulated path there was only one way, which was to do everything right from the start.[^8]
### Political giving
Federal Election Commission itemized contributions under "Lopes Lara, Luana" and the variants "Lara, Luana Lopes," "Lopes-Lara, Luana" and "Lara, Luana Lopez" run from July 17, 2024 through July 6, 2026. ActBlue and WinRed conduit lines repeat candidate-committee lines, and NRSC transfers attributed to NRSC Victory repeat the NRSC Victory receipt. Counting each dollar once, the contributions total about 487,000 dollars: about 419,000 to Republican committees and candidates and about 68,000 to Democratic ones. Her occupation field reads engineer in 2024 and 2026 records, co-founder in June 2025 and chief operating officer in July 2026.[^13]
- July 17, 2024: 291 dollars to Trump National Committee JFC and 261.90 dollars to Never Surrender, Inc., the committee that received the joint fundraising transfer.
- June 23, 2025: 5,000 dollars to Lummis for Wyoming (through WinRed).
- September 2, 2025: 7,000 dollars to Angie Craig for Minnesota (through ActBlue).
- March 3, 2026: 100,000 dollars to the Republican National Committee, in two records (55,700 dollars to its legal proceedings account and 44,300 dollars to its general account).
- March 30 to 31, 2026: 7,000 dollars each to the committees of Democrats Lori Trahan, Emily Randall, Andrea Salinas, Darren Soto and Vargas, and 5,000 dollars to Willamette Valley PAC.
- April 29, 2026: 250,000 dollars to NRSC Victory, a joint fundraising committee, which passed it to the [[National Republican Senatorial Committee]] the same day in three parts (132,900 dollars to its legal proceedings account, 72,800 dollars to its headquarters account and 44,300 dollars to its general account). Tarek Mansour's records show the identical 250,000 dollar contribution and split one day earlier, on April 28.
- May 19 to June 16, 2026: 3,500 to 7,000 dollars per record to about twenty candidate committees, Republican (Andy Harris, Scott DesJarlais, Mary Miller, Warren Davidson, Andy Ogles, Barry Moore, Ben Cline, Nick Begich, Brandon Gill, Mark Harris, Stutzman) and Democratic (Shomari Figures, Vindman, Mannion, Yvette Clarke).
- July 6, 2026: 16,500 dollars to the NRSC headquarters account, attributed to the Hyde-Smith Victory Committee, and 5,000 dollars to Conservatives Harvesting Success PAC.
The NRSC, NRSC Victory and Hyde-Smith amounts match Mansour's records dollar for dollar.[^13]
### Wealth
Bloomberg Línea reported in December 2025 that the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated her net worth at about 1.3 billion dollars, based on a stake of about 12 percent.[^8] Forbes's real-time profile, dated October 13, 2026, lists her net worth at 2.6 billion dollars.[^6] Forbes Australia wrote on May 12, 2026 that each co-founder was worth about 1.3 billion dollars after the December 2025 round at an 11 billion dollar valuation.[^1] Forbes Australia reports that she became the world's youngest self-made woman billionaire in December 2025, ahead of [[Lucy Guo]].[^1]
### Board and officer roles
Form D filings for Kalshi Inc. list her as an executive officer and director, beginning with the filing signed March 19, 2020.[^2] The October 2025 and August 2026 filings list her in the same roles.[^14][^15] Her FEC records list her as a co-founder in 2025 and as chief operating officer in July 2026.[^13]
### Foreign ties
Forbes's profile gives her citizenship as Brazil.[^6] On April 24, 2026, Brazil's National Monetary Council published Resolution No. 5.298, which bars derivatives tied to sporting, political, electoral, cultural or entertainment events. According to a law firm's summary, the websites of Kalshi and Polymarket were blocked in the country.[^16]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Forbes Australia, "Kalshi billionaire cofounders double their net worths with another funding round," by Alicia Park, May 12, 2026. https://www.forbes.com.au/news/billionaires/kalshi-billionaire-cofounders-double-their-net-worths-with-another-funding-round/
[^2]: SEC Form D, Kalshi Inc. (CIK 0001806928), first sale March 4, 2020, signed March 19, 2020 by Tarek Mansour as Chief Executive Officer; Delaware corporation, year of incorporation 2018. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1806928/000180692820000001/primary_doc.xml
[^3]: Bora Investir (B3 investor-education site), "Bilionária self-made mais jovem do mundo: quem é Luana Lopes Lara, brasileira que foi de SC ao MIT." https://borainvestir.b3.com.br/noticias/bilionaria-selfmade-mais-jovem-do-mundo-quem-e-luana-lopes-lara-brasileira-que-foi-de-sc-ao-mit/
[^4]: Olhar Digital, "Brasileira vira bilionária aos 29 após criar plataforma de apostas," December 4, 2025. https://olhardigital.com.br/2025/12/04/pro/brasileira-vira-bilionaria-aos-29-apos-criar-plataforma-de-apostas/
[^5]: thetvdb.com episode listing, De Frente Com Gabi (SBT), aired April 20, 2014: "Marília Gabriela recebe Luana Lopes Lara." https://thetvdb.com/series/310982-show/episodes/5607997
[^6]: Forbes, profile of Luana Lopes Lara, real-time net worth as of 10/13/26 of $2.6B, citizenship listed as Brazil, education listed as a bachelor's degree from MIT, prior career "quantitative trader at Citadel Securities." https://www.forbes.com/profile/luana-lopes-lara/
[^7]: MIT OpenCourseWare, transcript of "18.642 Lecture 20," guest lecture by Tarek Mansour in Topics in Mathematics with Applications in Finance, fall 2024. https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-642-topics-in-mathematics-with-applications-in-finance-fall-2024/13AaI2uSrRerVN1lBm8bDHaIn0CLv4MQJ_transcript.pdf and the lecture listing at https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-642-topics-in-mathematics-with-applications-in-finance-fall-2024/pages/lecture-videos/ (Lecture 20 is titled "Building the First Federally (CFTC) Regulated Exchange Dedicated to Trading on Events").
[^8]: Bloomberg Línea (Brazil), "Como a brasileira Luana Lopes Lara ganhou holofote global com o mercado de previsões," December 5, 2025. https://www.bloomberglinea.com.br/2025/12/05/como-a-brasileira-luana-lopes-lara-ganhou-holofote-global-com-o-mercado-de-previsoes/
[^9]: Inc., "Inside the 3-year battle to legalize America's most controversial prediction market," reprinted on a Beehiiv newsletter. https://inc-1-smart-business-story.beehiiv.com/p/inside-the-3-year-battle-to-legalize-america-s-most-controversial-prediction-market
[^10]: Y Combinator, "October 2018 Hackathon Recap," dated October 8, 2018, listing under "Three teams won office hours." https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/october-2018-hackathon-recap
[^11]: Y Combinator, company page for Kalshi, batch Winter 2019 (W19), founders listed as Luana Lopes Lara and Tarek Mansour. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/kalshi
[^12]: Tarek Mansour (@mansourtarek_), post on X dated March 20, 2025, text as shown in the public embed. https://x.com/mansourtarek_/status/1902515335560880431
[^13]: Federal Election Commission, itemized individual contributions (Schedule A) under the contributor name "LOPES LARA, LUANA" and variants, cycles 2024 and 2026, retrieved October 13, 2026 through the OpenFEC API. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/
[^14]: SEC Form D, Kalshi Inc., filed October 23, 2025, related persons Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara (Executive Officer, Director), Alfred Lin, Michael Seibel and Matt Huang (Director). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1806928/000123191925000344/primary_doc.xml
[^15]: SEC Form D, Kalshi Inc., filed August 25, 2026, same related persons and roles as the October 23, 2025 filing. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1806928/000123191926001066/primary_doc.xml
[^16]: Campos Thomaz, "CMN bans prediction markets in Brazil, blocking access to Polymarket and Kalshi," April 24, 2026, citing CMN Resolução No. 5.298. https://camposthomaz.com/en/conhecimento-ct/cmn-bans-prediction-markets-in-brazil-blocking-access-to-polymarket-and-kalshi/

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10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Mercer family.md
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@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ relations:
role: "Rebekah Mercer, person with significant control holding 75 percent or more"
fn: 29
created: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-01
updated: 2026-10-13
---
The Mercer family is the family of Robert Mercer, who was a co-chief executive of the hedge fund [[Renaissance Technologies]] until he announced in November 2017 that he would step down, and his daughters Rebekah Mercer and Jennifer Mercer; a Heather Mercer appears with them as a director of the family's private foundation and as a beneficiary of a trust holding shares in [[Emerdata]].[^1][^2] The family's records include a private foundation, a series of federal super PAC and party contributions, an investment in the data company [[Cambridge Analytica]], a role in the social network [[Parler]], and a private equity vehicle, [[1789 Capital]], of which Rebekah Mercer is a managing member of the general partner.[^2][^3][^4][^5][^6]
@ -176,6 +176,8 @@ In November 2020 [[Newsweek]] reported, citing people familiar with the matter w
A Form D filed on February 9, 2023 by 1789 Capital Fund I, LP of Palm Beach, Florida lists [[Omeed Malik]], Rebekah Mercer and [[Christopher Buskirk]] each as executive officer, director, promoter and managing member of the general partner, with a first sale on January 31, 2023, $100,000,000 offered and $10,000,000 sold to one investor at a minimum of $1,000,000.[^6] Two further Forms D filed on June 10, 2024 by 1789 Capital Co-Invest I, LP and 1789 Capital BH, LP list her as manager of the general partner; the first reports $2,162,000 sold to seven investors and the second $9,700,000 of a $10,000,000 offering sold to 28 investors.[^31]
Forms D/A for 1789 Capital Fund I, LP filed on October 21, 2025 and December 15, 2025 each list Omeed Malik and Christopher Buskirk as executive officers, each described as "a principal of the general partner of the issuer." Rebekah Mercer is not listed in either amendment. Both report an indefinite offering and 270,514,000 dollars sold to 71 investors.[^32] On August 26, 2025 the firm made a strategic investment in [[Polymarket]], and [[Donald Trump Jr.]], a 1789 partner since November 2024, joined that company's advisory board.[^33]
### Footnotes
[^1]: House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, *Disinformation and "fake news": Final Report*, HC 1791, February 18, 2019, paragraph 286 and note 327 (describing "Jennifer and Rebekah Mercer (daughters of financier Robert Mercer)" as directors of Emerdata and listing trusts for the benefit of Rebekah, Jennifer and Heather Mercer among its shareholders as of August 10, 2018). https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf
@ -209,3 +211,5 @@ A Form D filed on February 9, 2023 by 1789 Capital Fund I, LP of Palm Beach, Flo
[^29]: Companies House, DYNAMO RECOVERIES LIMITED (company number 13246135), incorporated March 4, 2021, SIC 74990 non-trading company, registered office Suite 21, 60 Churchill Square, Kings Hill, West Malling; persons with significant control (Terence William Donal Blaney, March 4 to March 12, 2021; Rebekah Mercer, from March 12, 2021, 75 percent or more of shares and votes); officers including Jacquelyn James-Varga and Jennifer Lynne Mercer (each appointed March 12, 2021), viewed October 1, 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13246135/persons-with-significant-control
[^30]: "Parler Reportedly Backed by Mercers, Same Family That Funded Cambridge Analytica," *Newsweek*, November 2020 (reporting the account of the *Wall Street Journal* and statements of John Matze and Rebekah Mercer). https://www.newsweek.com/parler-reportedly-backed-mercers-same-family-that-funded-cambridge-analytica-1547519
[^31]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Forms D filed June 10, 2024: 1789 Capital Co-Invest I, LP (CIK 0002026273), accession no. 0002026273-24-000001 ($2,162,000 sold; seven investors) and 1789 Capital BH, LP (CIK 0002025959), accession no. 0002025959-24-000001 ($9,700,000 sold of $10,000,000; 28 investors; Rebekah Mercer listed as manager of 1789 Capital Fund I GP, LLC). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2026273/000202627324000001/primary_doc.xml
[^32]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Forms D/A, 1789 Capital Fund I, LP (CIK 0001965234): accession 0001965234-25-000002, filed October 21, 2025, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1965234/000196523425000002/primary_doc.xml ; accession 0001965234-25-000004, filed December 15, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1965234/000196523425000004/primary_doc.xml
[^33]: "Donald Trump Jr. invests in Polymarket and joins advisory board," The Block, August 26, 2025, https://www.theblock.co/post/368292/donald-trump-jr-invests-in-polymarket-and-joins-advisory-board ; "Donald Trump Jr. is joining a venture capital firm that focuses on conservative audiences," Fortune, November 12, 2024. https://www.fortune.com/2024/11/12/donald-trump-jr-venture-capital-1789-capital

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---
aliases:
- Tarek Mansour
- "Mansour, Tarek"
category: "Business & Finance"
tags:
- Person
- TarekMansour
- Kalshi
- PredictionMarkets
- MIT
- YCombinator
- CFTC
- Billionaires
- Lebanon
summary: "Co-founder and chief executive of Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange, who studied at MIT, worked at Goldman Sachs and Citadel, and was listed by Forbes in 2025 as a self-made billionaire."
location: "New York, New York"
created: 2026-10-13
updated: 2026-10-13
relations:
- type: founded
with: "[[Kalshi]]"
role: "co-founder"
start: 2018
fn: 2
- type: head_of
with: "[[Kalshi]]"
role: "chief executive officer"
start: 2020-03
fn: 2
- type: director_of
with: "[[Kalshi]]"
role: "director, listed on Form D filings"
start: 2020-03
fn: 11
- type: partner_of
with: "[[Luana Lopes Lara]]"
role: "co-founder of Kalshi"
start: 2018
fn: 20
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Y Combinator]]"
role: "office-hours team at the October 2018 hackathon; Winter 2019 batch (W19)"
start: 2018-10
fn: 6
- type: participant_in
with: "[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]"
role: "student; bachelor's degree class of 2018, master of engineering class of 2019"
end: 2019
fn: 3
- type: employed_by
with: "[[Citadel]]"
role: "trader before founding Kalshi"
end: 2018
fn: 1
---
Tarek Mansour is the co-founder and chief executive of [[Kalshi]], a company that operates an exchange for event contracts under the rules of the [[Commodity Futures Trading Commission]]. He was born in California, grew up in [[Lebanon]], studied at [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], and worked in trading at [[Goldman Sachs]] and [[Citadel]] before he and [[Luana Lopes Lara]] incorporated the company in Delaware in 2018.[^1][^2]
### Origins
In a guest lecture to the fall 2024 course 18.642, Topics in Mathematics with Applications in Finance, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mansour said: "So I was born in California. I grew up in Lebanon."[^1] He said he had loved math since middle school and high school, and that MIT was the place to pursue it. The course instructor, [[Peter Kempthorne]], introduced him as a former student of the class who "joined really the giants of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and Bridgewater" on leaving MIT and who "three years ago" started Kalshi with Luana Lopes Lara.[^1] Mansour said: "I know Lara did last year, and I think I did the year before that."[^1]
### MIT
An MIT News reprint of a December 2025 Forbes article lists him as "Tarek Mansour ’18, MNG ’19," alongside Lopes Lara.[^3] Forbes's profile of him lists a bachelor's and a master's degree from MIT.[^4] The MIT DSpace repository holds a 2019 master of engineering thesis by "Mansour, Tarek" in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, titled "Deep neural networks are lazy: on the inductive bias of deep learning." The thesis was supervised by [[Aleksander Madry]] and runs 78 pages.[^5] The record gives the author as "Mansour, Tarek," M.Eng., 2019, matching the class note.
### Early jobs
In the lecture Mansour said he worked on the "sell side or buy side, so banks like Goldman Sachs," and then at Citadel and at "small prop shops." Kempthorne's introduction also named [[Bridgewater Associates]].[^1] He said: "I realized I prefer building more," meaning he preferred building new products to trading. He said of the Citadel offer: "Citadel pays a lot of money. Even as a first timer, it's crazy." He said: "I didn't come from a very privileged background." He gave a 2016 example of the demand for event exposure: "One example in 2016 is that a lot of people were actually trying to get a hedge or an exposure to Brexit." Investors used stocks and options as a stand-in, he said: "It was a proxy. It was indirect, and it was super expensive because it was what we call over-the-counter, OTC traded."[^1]
### Founding and the Y Combinator hackathon
Mansour described the idea as a question of "What if we had a financial market that prices basically any question about the future, any event that is in the horizon that is meaningful economically or socially or culturally?"[^1] He said the founders "called pretty much every single securities/derivatives lawyer in the country," and that the answers ranged "all the way to, hey, this is just not going to work." On leaving Citadel he said: "I didn't go back to Citadel, and so we just decided to start Kalshi."[^1] About his co-founder he said: "She's always been risk-loving."[^1]
The [[Y Combinator]] hackathon recap, dated October 8, 2018, lists "Kalshi" with the description "Opinion gathering platform" under "Three teams won office hours." The listed team members are Tarek Mansour, Luana Lopes Lara and [[Duncan Cock Foster]].[^6] Y Combinator's company page lists Mansour and Lopes Lara as founders in the Winter 2019 batch (W19).[^7] A Duncan Cock Foster co-founded the NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway with his brother Griffin, which was sold to Gemini in a deal announced November 19, 2019; the records found do not establish whether he is the hackathon teammate of the same name.[^8][^9]
On March 20, 2025, as [[Michael Seibel]] was stepping back from Y Combinator, Mansour wrote on X: "Without @mwseibel, Kalshi wouldn’t exist, and Luana and I are forever grateful for his guidance throughout the years." He wrote that he would share "how we met and Kalshi’s origin story."[^10] Seibel is listed as a director of Kalshi in the company's Form D filings.[^11]
### Regulatory fight and public statements
In a June 2026 interview with [[Front Office Sports]], Mansour said: "We feel very confident about the legal analysis." He said "preemption is very clear, and I think breaking that preemption would have more dramatic consequences on CFTC-regulated exchanges," and that "suing the government is not a decision we took lightly."[^12]
On sports contracts he said: "We ban athletes from trading on their leagues." He compared the model with sportsbooks: "They're betting against their consumers and they ban winners. They make more from the losers." He also said: "Clearly, consumers are asking for this product," and "I think banning minors, unequivocally, is the right move."[^12]
At an Axios event in Washington, reported by The National on July 14, 2026, Mansour said: "Our best inflation forecaster is a random guy in Kansas, has a blue-collar job and never really traded on the financial markets." Asked about a Wall Street Journal story reporting that most customers lose money, he said: "I find this sort of point funny, right?"[^13]
Asked about [[Donald Trump Jr.]] in the same interview, Mansour said: "He's not involved in regulatory in any way, shape, or form."[^12]
On January 7, 2026, Mansour wrote on LinkedIn that Kalshi supported a bill by [[Ritchie Torres]] "to affirm the ban on insider trading on prediction markets." He wrote: "Why? Because we already implement it." He added that "this American bill only applies to regulated, American companies and not to unregulated, non-American companies, which is where the alleged issues are occurring."[^14]
### Congressional and regulatory filings
Democratic members of the [[Senate Banking Committee]], led by Ranking Member [[Elizabeth Warren]], asked Chair [[Tim Scott]] on September 23, 2026 for a public hearing on prediction markets. The letter states: "The reports claim that executives from Kalshi will be in attendance," and asks for "a public hearing" on a "bipartisan basis" rather than a "Republican-only, industry-friendly roundtable." It cites a Punchbowl News report of September 18, 2026 that Scott planned a roundtable that week with only Republican members. The other signers were [[Catherine Cortez Masto]], [[Jack Reed]], [[Mark Warner]], [[Chris Van Hollen]], [[Tina Smith]], [[Raphael Warnock]], [[Andy Kim]], [[Ruben Gallego]], [[Lisa Blunt Rochester]] and [[Angela Alsobrooks]].[^15]
Bloomberg Government reported on June 2, 2026 that "Republicans will hear from Kalshi founder and CEO Tarek Mansour," at a House Financial Services Committee prediction-market roundtable for Republicans.[^16]
Kalshi's comments to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2026 on two CFTC dockets are catalogued on regulations.gov under the company's name. The comments on docket CFTC-2026-1189 are dated July 27, 2026, and the comment on docket CFTC-2026-1453 was received July 31, 2026.[^17]
### Political giving
Federal Election Commission itemized contributions under the name "Mansour, Tarek" run from August 28, 2020 through July 8, 2026, with the employer given as Kalshi and the occupation as CEO from 2025. The first record is a 25 dollar ActBlue earmark for the Biden Victory Fund dated August 28, 2020, when the donor listed himself as not employed. ActBlue and WinRed conduit lines repeat the candidate-committee lines, and NRSC transfers attributed to NRSC Victory repeat the NRSC Victory receipt. Counting each dollar once, the contributions total about 747,000 dollars: about 466,000 to Republican committees and candidates, about 278,000 to Democratic ones, and 3,300 to the 2023 Kennedy presidential committee.[^18]
The largest items, all 2026 unless stated:
- January 21: 44,300 dollars to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
- January 20: 19,000 dollars to New York Majority Fund (through ActBlue).
- March 25 to 31: 26,000 dollars to Blue Dog Victory Fund, 22,000 dollars to Steil Victory Fund, 10,000 dollars to the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and 5,000 dollars each to Blue Dog PAC, Jersey Values PAC and On Wisconsin PAC.
- April 28: 250,000 dollars to NRSC Victory, a joint fundraising committee. The same day the committee passed the money to the [[National Republican Senatorial Committee]] in three parts (132,900 dollars to its legal proceedings account, 72,800 dollars to its headquarters account and 44,300 dollars to its general account).
- July 8: 16,500 dollars to the NRSC headquarters account, attributed to the Hyde-Smith Victory Committee, and 5,000 dollars to Conservatives Harvesting Success PAC.
From January through June 2026 he also gave 3,500 to 7,000 dollars per record to about forty House and Senate candidate committees of both parties, among them Democratic candidates Jim Costa, Adam Gray, Pete Aguilar, Salud Carbajal, Jimmy Panetta, Tom Suozzi and Yvette Clarke, and Republican candidates Bryan Steil, Andy Harris, Scott DesJarlais, Mary Miller, Warren Davidson and Andy Ogles. In 2025 he gave to the committees of Tom Cotton (7,000 dollars, plus 15,000 dollars to Cotton Majority Committee), Ken Paxton, Cynthia Lummis, Angie Craig and Whatley for Senate. In 2022 he gave to the committees of Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Debbie Stabenow and Sean Patrick Maloney (Democrats) and John Boozman and John Thune (Republicans).[^18]
### Wealth
Forbes's real-time profile, dated October 13, 2026, lists his net worth at 2.6 billion dollars, with the source of wealth given as "Prediction markets, Self Made."[^4] A May 2026 Forbes article, reprinted by Forbes Australia, says each co-founder owns roughly 12 percent of Kalshi and was worth about 1.3 billion dollars after a December 2025 funding round at an 11 billion dollar valuation.[^19]
### Board and officer roles
Kalshi's Form D filings list Mansour as an executive officer and director. He signed the first of these, filed March 19, 2020, as chief executive officer.[^2] The October 2025 and August 2026 filings list him in the same roles, alongside [[Alfred Lin]], [[Matt Huang]] and Michael Seibel as directors.[^11][^20]
### Foreign ties
Mansour said in the lecture that he grew up in Lebanon, and The National described him in July 2026 as a "Lebanese-American chief executive."[^1][^13]
### Same-name records
A different Tarek Mansour, described as a senior partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers Egypt with more than 40 years of experience as a business advisor, appears in a biography PDF hosted on the website of the Egyptian Financial Regulatory Authority. The biography lists board seats including the National Investment Bank, Misr Asset Management Co. and the Egyptian Insurance Supervisory Authority.[^21] Career, age and location differ from the Kalshi co-founder's.
### Footnotes
[^1]: MIT OpenCourseWare, transcript of "18.642 Lecture 20," guest lecture by Tarek Mansour in Topics in Mathematics with Applications in Finance, fall 2024. https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-642-topics-in-mathematics-with-applications-in-finance-fall-2024/13AaI2uSrRerVN1lBm8bDHaIn0CLv4MQJ_transcript.pdf and the lecture listing at https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-642-topics-in-mathematics-with-applications-in-finance-fall-2024/pages/lecture-videos/ (Lecture 20 is titled "Building the First Federally (CFTC) Regulated Exchange Dedicated to Trading on Events").
[^2]: SEC Form D, Kalshi Inc. (CIK 0001806928), first sale March 4, 2020, signed March 19, 2020 by Tarek Mansour as Chief Executive Officer; Delaware corporation, year of incorporation 2018. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1806928/000180692820000001/primary_doc.xml
[^3]: MIT News, "In the Media" entry reprinting Forbes, "How Kalshi's Cofounder Went From Professional Ballerina To World's Youngest Self-Made Woman Billionaire," December 2025. https://news.mit.edu/news-clip/forbes-814
[^4]: Forbes, profile of Tarek Mansour, real-time net worth as of 10/13/26 of $2.6B, source of wealth "Prediction markets, Self Made," education listed as bachelor's and master's degrees from MIT. https://www.forbes.com/profile/tarek-mansour/
[^5]: MIT DSpace, "Deep neural networks are lazy: on the inductive bias of deep learning," M.Eng. thesis, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2019, by "Mansour, Tarek," advisor Aleksander Madry, 78 pages. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/121680
[^6]: Y Combinator, "October 2018 Hackathon Recap," dated October 8, 2018, listing under "Three teams won office hours." https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/october-2018-hackathon-recap
[^7]: Y Combinator, company page for Kalshi, batch Winter 2019 (W19), founders listed as Luana Lopes Lara and Tarek Mansour. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/kalshi
[^8]: The Block, "Winklevoss brothers acquire crypto collectible startup," November 19, 2019: "The acquired firm, Nifty Gateway, was founded by brothers Duncan and Griffin Cock Foster." https://www.theblock.co/linked/47589/
[^9]: Fortune, NFTY 50 (2021), "Duncan & Griffin Cock Foster": "The pair sold their site to crypto company Gemini in 2019." https://fortune.com/nfty-50/2021/duncan-griffin-cock-foster/
[^10]: Tarek Mansour (@mansourtarek_), post on X dated March 20, 2025, text as shown in the public embed. https://x.com/mansourtarek_/status/1902515335560880431
[^11]: SEC Form D, Kalshi Inc., filed October 23, 2025, related persons Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara (Executive Officer, Director), Alfred Lin, Michael Seibel and Matt Huang (Director). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1806928/000123191925000344/primary_doc.xml
[^12]: Front Office Sports, "Kalshi's Tarek Mansour Talks Giannis, Don Jr., Supreme Court," June 19, 2026, Q&A at Kalshi's New York offices. https://frontofficesports.com/kalshis-tarek-mansour-talks-giannis-don-jr-supreme-court/
[^13]: The National, "Prediction markets here to stay, Kalshi CEO Mansour says," by Cody Combs, Washington, July 14, 2026. https://www.thenationalnews.com/future/technology/2026/07/14/kalshi-ceo-tarek-mansour-lebanon/
[^14]: Covers, "Kalshi CEO Backs Bill to Curb Prediction Market Insider Trading," January 7, 2026, quoting a LinkedIn post by Tarek Mansour on the bill introduced by Rep. Ritchie Torres. https://www.covers.com/industry/prediction-markets-insider-trading-bill-kalshi-support-iga-concerns-january-2026
[^15]: Letter from Democratic members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to Chair Tim Scott, September 23, 2026, requesting a public hearing on prediction markets (signed by Elizabeth Warren and other members). https://www.banking.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2026.09.23%20Letter%20to%20Chair%20Scott%20re%20Prediction%20Market%20Roundtable.pdf
[^16]: Bloomberg Government, report on a House Financial Services Committee prediction-market roundtable for Republicans, June 2, 2026. https://news.bgov.com/bloomberg-government-news/house-financial-services-gop-host-prediction-market-roundtable
[^17]: Regulations.gov, comments by Kalshi on CFTC docket CFTC-2026-1189 ("Prediction Markets; Public Interest Determinations," comments 0365, 0366, 0368, 0369 and 0380, received July 27, 2026) and CFTC-2026-1453 ("Data Reporting Requirements for Certain Event Contracts," comment 0034, received July 31, 2026). https://www.regulations.gov/comment/CFTC-2026-1189-0365 and https://www.regulations.gov/comment/CFTC-2026-1453-0034
[^18]: Federal Election Commission, itemized individual contributions (Schedule A) under the contributor name "MANSOUR, TAREK," 161 records across cycles 2018 to 2026, retrieved October 13, 2026 through the OpenFEC API. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/
[^19]: Forbes Australia, "Kalshi billionaire cofounders double their net worths with another funding round," by Alicia Park, May 12, 2026. https://www.forbes.com.au/news/billionaires/kalshi-billionaire-cofounders-double-their-net-worths-with-another-funding-round/
[^20]: SEC Form D, Kalshi Inc., filed August 25, 2026, same related persons and roles as the October 23, 2025 filing. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1806928/000123191926001066/primary_doc.xml
[^21]: Biography PDF of a Tarek Mansour, hosted at fra.gov.eg (website of the Egyptian Financial Regulatory Authority), uploaded August 2022. https://fra.gov.eg/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/My-bio.pdf