Report: Pelosi’s Husband Secured $5.3 Million from Alphabet Options

Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), reportedly made massive bets on stocks in the weeks prior to the antitrust legislation vote in committee, securing large sums of money.

In the weeks before the House Judiciary Committee voted on the antitrust legislation — aimed at Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet’s Google — that was meant to limit the way companies organize and offer their products, Paul exercised call options, according to Nancy’s financial disclosure forms.

The financial disclosure showed that Paul was “exercising call options to acquire 4,000 shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, at a strike price of $1,200. The trade netted him a $4.8 million gain, and it’s risen to $5.3 million since then as the shares have jumped,” according to Bloomberg.

Nancy filed the disclosure form July 2. The transaction was ultimately completed a week prior to the Judiciary Committee vote. The votes were supposed to advance six bipartisan antitrust bills, four of which targeted Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook.

Bloomberg noted that the market was quiet, implying that investors did not see the bills are a real threat to those companies. Doing so, the share price from Alphabet had increased 3.2% since the Judiciary Committee voted the legislation out of committee.

The report added that Paul bought 20 call options for Amazon on May 21 with a strike price of $3,000, and 50 call options for Apple with a strike price of $100. Both options expire in June 2022, suggesting that he expects the price to continue to rise over the next year.

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Nancy, said in a statement that “The speaker has no involvement or prior knowledge of these transactions,” and in fact does not own any stocks herself.

Nancy said in June that she supports anti-trust bills to hold the companies accountable. She said, “Congress is not going to ignore the consolidation that has happened and the concern that exists on both sides of the aisle.” She added that the job Congress has is to “the consumer and competition.”

Paul’s stock transactions are not suspected of violating or breaking any laws, though the financial disclosure forms must be filed within 30 days and no more than 45 days after the transaction takes place.