The husband of Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seemingly knows something the rest of the world doesn’t – making a $6 million bet on companies Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and NVIDIA, just before a House committee moved forward with multiple bills looking to limit the power of Big Tech corporations.
A list of disclosed transactions reveal that on June 18, Paul Pelosi exercised his Alphabet call options, which give him the right to buy 4,000 shares at a price of $1,200 per share, amounting to a total of $4.8 million. On May 21, he spent up to $250,000 on 50 Apple calls with a strike price of $100, and spent up to $1 million on 20 Amazon calls with a strike price of $3,000, both of which expire on June 17, 2022.
A spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi’s office claimed, “The speaker has no involvement or prior knowledge of these transactions,” adding that “The speaker does not own any stock.”
It’s worth noting that Apple CEO Tim Cook personally called Nancy Pelosi in an effort to shut down the legislation. Cook told Pelosi in a phone call that he believed the bills had been rushed and would stunt innovation.
Former Democratic House Representative Jill Long Thompson defended the crooked Pelosi family, arguing that Nancy Pelosi’s husband likely didn’t violate the STOCK Act, claiming that information regarding the legislation is publicly available and he probably wouldn’t “have any information that someone else wouldn’t,” despite his marriage to the most powerful member of congress.
The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act is designed to prevent insider trading, and was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2012. It prohibits the use of non-public information for private profit, including the use of insider information for profit by members of Congress.
This if far from the first time Paul Pelosi has made investment decisions in “close proximity to happenings in Congress.”
“Paul Pelosi in March exercised $1.95 million worth of Microsoft call options less than two weeks before the tech stalwart secured a $22 billion contract to supply U.S. Army combat troops with augmented reality headsets,” Fox explained.
“In January, he purchased up to $1 million of Tesla calls before the Biden administration delivered its plans to provide incentives to promote the shift away from traditional automobiles and toward electric vehicles.”
Legislation targeting Big Tech giants Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook passed an initial hurdle in June, with a House committee approving the legislative move.
“The president is encouraged by the bipartisan work to address problems created by big tech platforms,” a White House official said. “We hope the legislative process continues to move forward on these bipartisan proposals, and we look forward to working with Congress to continue developing these ideas.”
Adam Kovacevich — the CEO of the Chamber of Progress, a group sponsored by multiple Big Tech companies including Amazon, Facebook, and Google — argued that “Democrats should focus on making people’s lives better, not messing with stuff people already like” in a blog post in early June.
Author: Shane Tempest
