The latest financial disclosures of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi include a recent stock option buy that could result in a financial windfall for the California Democrat thanks to a Biden administration electric car executive order just issued.
According to the disclosure, the California Democrat (or her husband, Paul, who heads up a venture capital firm) purchased 25 Tesla call options. The options were purchased at a stake price of $500 and expire March 18, 2022. The speaker bought between $500,000 and $1 million in options.
Since the call options were purchased back in December, Tesla shares have risen from $640.34 to over $890. The options are now worth $1.12 million.
President Biden, earlier in the week, put forth his “Buy American” executive order. The proposal includes a provision to replace the U.S. government’s fleet of cars and trucks with American-made electric vehicles. Tesla is among three car manufacturing companies that assemble electric vehicles in the United States.
Although It is legal for lawmakers and their spouses to own stocks, the transactions must be disclosed, per the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act. However, members of Congress find themselves getting snagged and questioned if their purchases are related to information they routinely learn while at work in Washington.
Then-Rep. Chris Collins, a New York Republican who was prosecuted and convicted for insider trading, called his son, Cameron Collins, from the White House to inform him before the information was public that an Australian biotech company’s drug trial had failed. The elder Collins directed his son to sell off the stock before the news broke.
Collins was pardoned by President Donald Trump on Dec. 22.
Former Sen. David Perdue, a Georgia Republican, was investigated by the Justice Department for stock purchases he made that were seen as financially beneficial to him during the coronavirus pandemic. Perdue was cleared of any wrongdoing, but his fellow Georgia Republican senator at the time, Kelly Loeffler, was also accused of profiting off the pandemic when she sold between $1.275 million and $3.1 million in stocks following a January 2020 briefing about the threat of the coronavirus.
Both were cleared by federal officials of any wrongdoing, but the perception stuck. Perdue and Loeffler each lost their seats in Jan. 5 runoffs, tipping the Senate to a Democratic majority.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Pelosi’s office for comment and did not hear back.
