There’s a “new king on the town” in relation to congressional inventory merchants — at the least in relation to AI chipmaker Nvidia.
Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna earned a 143% return of between $100,000 and $250,000 on Nvidia inventory that his spouse bought in February 2024, earlier than the federal CHIPS Act helped to greater than double the corporate’s share value.
The well-timed commerce by the progressive Democrat — who teamed up with Sen. Bernie Sanders to push a nationwide billionaire tax, enraging his rich constituents — was known as out by Anthony Pompliano, who compiled information on members of Congress who traded AI-related shares.
The fortunate Nvidia shares are a part of a belief price tens of hundreds of thousands held by Khanna’s spouse, Ritu, a rich heiress whose father based Transtar Industries Inc., an automotive transmission distributor.
Pompliano’s evaluation recommended that Khanna — as a rating member of the Home Armed Companies Subcommittee on Cyber, Progressive Applied sciences and Info Methods, which oversees protection AI procurement — may have been aware about inside info.
Nevertheless, his general returns in 2025 barely underperformed the market — suggesting his booming Nvidia holdings are propping up his portfolio.
“I’ve been a frontrunner to ban Congressional inventory buying and selling, don’t commerce, and don’t have any enter within the trades filed by my spouse’s belief,” Khanna wrote in his personal protection on X.
The progressive rep is ranked as essentially the most lively Democratic dealer within the Home of Representatives — with greater than $600 million in buying and selling quantity throughout a staggering 37,172 trades, in keeping with Quiver Quantitative.
Knowledge on Khanna’s whole returns weren’t instantly out there, however the website exhibits the rep shopping for up shares in Albertson’s, Berkshire Hathaway, Blackrock Monetary, Coinbase and different priceless corporations all through February.
Critics have blasted Khanna as hypocritical for railing in opposition to the ultra-wealthy whereas profiting handsomely from his household investments.
“Nancy Pelosi is wealthy and everybody is aware of it — she doesn’t attempt to conceal it. Ro tries to be a person of the individuals,” stated Ethan Agarwal, who’s difficult Khanna for his congressional seat.
“It’s the hypocrisy of it’s that’s inflicting such a stir.”
Chamath Palihapitiya, a outstanding enterprise capitalist and critic of the billionaire tax, known as Khanna a “horrible consultant of Silicon Valley.”
“The unhappy factor is that Ro is the man preaching for socialism whereas he’s essentially the most lively insider dealer in Congress,” he wrote on X.
Khanna’s wealth and work in Congress have been scrutinized earlier than. A 2022 New York Occasions investigation discovered vital potential conflicts between Khanna’s congressional work and household’s curiosity, calculating a 15% overlap between his legislative work and household holdings.
“It’s authorized, however does that imply you’re pressured to commerce? Nobody’s forcing you to do that,” Agarwal stated.
“He thinks persons are silly.”
Different representatives with hefty AI-related funding returns embody Pelosi — whose husband’s inventory returns are so distinctive they’re broadly copied by a web based “Pelosi Tracker” — in addition to Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Michael McCaul and Markwayne Mullin, in addition to Democratic Rep. Cleo Fields.
Congress has tried and failed through the years to rein in inventory buying and selling by members.
A Republican-led invoice known as the Cease Insider Buying and selling Act would add restrictions on inventory buying and selling, although Democrats have criticized the measure as crammed with loopholes.
