No surprise then that she is blocking bipartisan attempts to prevent members of Congress from engaging in individual stock picks, according to a New York Post report.
After decades in public service, Pelosi has amassed an estimated net worth of anywhere between $40 million and $252 million, and recently her family invested millions in call options — gambling that the stock price would increase — on such companies as Google, Salesforce, Micron Technology, and Roblox.
Back then, her criticizers stressed that Pelosi was helping those companies by "slow-walking" Congressional efforts to rein in Big Tech.
Pelosi has pushed back against these allegations, asserting that members of Congress should be able to engage in the "free-market" and that there would be "no" conflict of interest from doing so, even if a member has insider information on how new laws or regulations could affect the company's performance and its stock price.
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During a press conference in mid-December, Pelosi was asked if she had any "reaction" to 49 members of Congress violating the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (or STOCK Act) and if members of Congress should be banned from trading individual stocks while serving.
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Pelosi announced, "no, to the second [question]. We have a responsibility to report on the stock, but I'm not familiar with that five-month review, but if people aren't reporting, they should be. We are a free-market economy; they should be able to participate in that."
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The speaker and her husband may be among the world's top stock pickers, with federal disclosure reports indicating they beat the S&P 500 index two years in a row, by 4.9% in 2019 and a shocking 14.3% in 2020.
Reacting to Pelosi's comment, former director of the United States Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, tweeted, "it's a ridiculous comment! She might as well have said 'let them eat cake.'
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"Sure, it's a free-market economy. But your average schmuck doesn't get confidential briefings from government experts chock full of nonpublic information directly related to the price of stocks," he announced.
Pelosi is not breaking any laws. In 2012 Congress enacted the STOCK Act, enabling members of the House and Senate to purchase and sell stocks using privileged information as long as they reveal their trades within 45 days of execution.
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Paul Pelosi, Pelosi's husband, who heads the venture capital firm Financial Leasing Services, has made many bets on companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Google, that his wife has been called to regulate.
Though as Drew Hammill, Pelosi's spokesman, points out, the congresswoman "does not own any stocks."
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