Nancy Pelosi files new AI stock trades ahead of President Trump’s inauguration

California Representative Nancy Pelosi has disclosed new stock trades, which included seven investments involving artificial intelligence equities, on the Inauguration day of President-elect Donald Trump. 

According to recent filings shared on January 20, Pelosi made a total of nine trades, with the majority focused on AI-related stocks. The acquisitions include NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA), Tempus AI, Inc. (TEM), Amazon (AMZN) and Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL). Additional trades involved Palo Alto Networks, Inc. (PANW) and a sale of Apple Inc. (AAPL) shares.

The information was first shared by the Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker account on X, which is known for tracking politicians’ financial disclosures.

Investors question Nancy Pelosi trades, citing insider trading claims 

For years, Pelosi and her husband Paul, who reportedly makes the trades on her behalf, have faced accusations of using confidential market information for financial gain. The former House Speaker has denied these claims and expressed support for the ETHICS Act, a bipartisan effort to ban congressional stock trading. 

One X user protested the idea that the trades Pelosi makes are clean, saying that politicians make profits based on insider information while regular traders “waste hours reading charts.”

Insider trader. People are wasting hours in reading charts and this politicians are just making millions based on insider information so unfair.

— OldMonk (@oldmonk06) January 20, 2025

According to the Pelosi Stock Tracker account, the US Representative’s investment portfolio achieved a 54% return in 2024, outperforming prominent hedge funds and the popular Inverse Cramer account, which gained 43%. 

The returns made Pelosi’s portfolio the top performer on the Autopilot investment app, created by the same team behind the Pelosi tracker account. Analysts note that Pelosi’s gains even outpaced those of leading funds, including Discovery Capital, China’s Bridgewater, and Contour, through advanced AI and machine learning models leveraged to optimize profits.

In late 2023, Unusual Whales, a platform monitoring congressional trading, reported that Nancy Pelosi earned nearly $4 million in gains from Nvidia call options purchased by Paul. The trade yielded a 210% return over 197 days, significantly boosting her portfolio.

Data also shows that in the last decade, Pelosi’s investments are estimated to have delivered a staggering 700% return. Critics are now calling to action the success of these investments, given her husband’s role as an investment banker managing the trades.

US government seeks to nerf political stock market activity

Towards the end of 2024, President Joe Biden joined calls for a federal ban on stock trading by members of Congress, including their spouses and dependents. 

In a YouTube interview with Faiz Shakir, an adviser to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Biden said, “We should change the law so nobody in Congress can make money in the stock market while serving.”

Biden spoke about a proposed Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act, which seeks to prohibit lawmakers and their families from buying or selling individual stocks. The bill would require Congress members to divest shares within 90 days of the act’s passage or place them in blind trusts.

The current regulatory oversight on congressional market activity, named the STOCK Act, prohibits US lawmakers from trading on non-public information obtained through their official roles and requires timely disclosure of trades exceeding $1,000. 

Reports indicate that some lawmakers fail to file timely disclosures or omit them entirely. Per news from the publication Business Insider, no public records of violations or penalties have been filed under the act. 

Several congress members, including representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Brian Fitzpatrick, now believe the scope of the Act is limited.

“The American people deserve leaders who are accountable, transparent, and wholly committed to serving their communities and country—not their stock portfolios,” reckoned Pennsylvania rep Fitzpatrick, “The Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act is not just about banning an unethical practice; it is about restoring the fundamental integrity of our democratic institutions.”

Public confidence in the act waned further during the COVID-19 pandemic when reports surfaced of lawmakers profiting from significant stock trades amid the crisis. Since then, efforts to strengthen insider trading laws or impose stricter bans on individual stock trading have repeatedly failed.

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