AP
- Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that her venture capitalist husband has "absolutely not" traded using information she's given him.
- Her husband, Paul Pelosi, has invested millions in 19 different companies since 2021.
- Congress is currently debating if they and their spouses should even be allowed to trade individual stocks.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday denied that her husband made stock trades based on any information she's given him.
"Absolutely not," Pelosi, a Democrat from California, said at a press conference after a reporter asked whether her husband, Paul Pelosi, had ever invested in stocks using "information he had received from you."
Pelosi's husband is a successful venture capitalist and serial investor. Since 2021, Insider found that he's made tens of millions of dollars in stock and stock option trades together involving 19 companies.
The speaker reported in July that her husband recently exercised 200 call options, or 20,000 shares, of NVIDIA worth between $1 million and $5 million.
NVIDIA is a producer of high-end graphics processing units, and the investment has drawn criticism for coming directly before the Senate is set to vote on a $52 billion bill to bolster computer chip manufacturing in the United States.
The trades also come at a time when members of Congress are debating whether federal lawmakers and their spouses should even be allowed to trade individual stocks.
When asked in December 2021 how she felt about a possible ban, she said "We are a free-market economy. They should be able to participate in that." After intense blowback from the public and her colleagues, Pelosi ultimately acquiesced on a possible ban, saying, "If members want to do that, I'm okay with that."
Despite support for a ban from both sides of the aisle, its fate is unclear.
Members of Congress, meanwhile, continue to violate the existing Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012, which they passed to curb insider trading and defend against conflicts of interest.
Since June alone, STOCK Act violators that Insider has identified include Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee; Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat from Texas; Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat from California; Maria Elvira Salazar, a Republican of Florida; Jamie Raskin, a Democrat of Maryland; Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat from Colorado; and Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican from North Carolina.
In all, Insider and other media organizations have since 2021 identified 66 members of Congress who've violated the STOCK Act.
In late 2021, Insider analyzed each member of Congress' net worth and found Pelosi as the 14th wealthiest member of Congress with an estimated net worth of $46,123,051, almost all of which comes from her husband's bevy of investments.
source https://www.businessinsider.com/nancy-pelosi-stock-trading-husband-congress-2022-7