Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat who has publicly championed banning congressional stock trading, earned a 143% return, between $100,000 and $250,000, on Nvidia shares his wife purchased in February 2024, the New York Post reported. The gain has drawn sharp criticism from financial commentators, political opponents, and even a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist who called Khanna "the most active insider trader in Congress."
The trade was made through a trust held by Khanna's wife, Ritu Khanna, a wealthy heiress whose father founded Transtar Industries Inc., an automotive transmission distributor. The trust is reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars. Nvidia's share price more than doubled after the federal CHIPS Act, a fact that makes the timing of the purchase especially notable, and especially awkward for a lawmaker who sits as ranking member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems, which oversees defense AI procurement.
Khanna defended himself on X, writing:
"I have been a leader to ban Congressional stock trading, do not trade, and have no input in the trades filed by my wife's trust."
That defense did not land well with his critics.
Anthony Pompliano, whose firm ProCap Insights compiled data on members of Congress who traded AI-related stocks, posted an analysis on X on April 8 that put the matter bluntly. Pompliano wrote:
"Nancy Pelosi take a seat. There is a new king in town when it comes to Congress members being abnormally good traders. Ro Khanna has DESTROYED the S&P 500 since January 2024."
Quiver Quantitative, a firm that tracks congressional trading, ranks Khanna as the most active Democratic trader in the House of Representatives. The firm reports more than $600 million in trading volume across 37,172 trades linked to Khanna. Those are staggering figures for any member of Congress, let alone one who has positioned himself as a champion of trading restrictions.
Khanna is not the only lawmaker who has profited from AI-related investments. The Post identified several other representatives with hefty returns in the sector, including Nancy Pelosi, whose husband's stock picks are so widely followed that an online "Pelosi Tracker" lets ordinary investors copy his trades. Republicans Marjorie Taylor Greene, Michael McCaul, and Markwayne Mullin, along with Democrat Cleo Fields, also appeared on the list.
Pelosi, of course, has long been the face of congressional stock trading controversy. Her influence within the Democratic Party extends well beyond the trading floor, but the trading issue has dogged her for years. Now Khanna's Nvidia windfall threatens to overtake even her reputation.
What separates Khanna's case from the bipartisan crowd of stock-trading lawmakers is the gap between his public posture and his family's portfolio. He has teamed up with Sen. Bernie Sanders to push a national billionaire tax. He has vocally supported banning the very activity that enriched his household.
Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, a prominent critic of the billionaire tax, seized on the contradiction. Palihapitiya wrote on X:
"The sad thing is that Ro is the guy preaching for socialism while he is the most active insider trader in Congress."
Ethan Agarwal, who is challenging Khanna for his congressional seat, offered a similar assessment. Agarwal told the Post that Pelosi at least does not pretend to be something she is not.
"Nancy Pelosi is rich and everyone knows it, she doesn't try to hide it. Ro tries to be a man of the people."
Agarwal added: "It's the hypocrisy of it is that's causing such a stir." He noted that the trading is legal but asked the obvious question: "It's legal, but does that mean you're forced to trade? No one's forcing you to do this."
That point deserves emphasis. Khanna's defense rests on the claim that he has "no input" in the trades filed by his wife's trust. But nobody compelled the trust to buy Nvidia shares in February 2024, right before the AI chipmaker's stock surged on the back of federal policy that Khanna's own subcommittee helps shape. The arrangement may satisfy the letter of current disclosure rules. Whether it satisfies basic common sense is another matter.
A 2022 New York Times investigation found significant potential conflicts between Khanna's congressional work and his family's financial interests, calculating a 15% overlap between his legislative work and family holdings. That investigation predates the Nvidia trade by two years, which means Khanna was already on notice that his household's portfolio raised questions about conflicts of interest, and traded into the AI boom anyway.
Pelosi's long record of well-timed trades has made her a symbol of what many Americans see as a rigged system, one where the powerful operate by a different set of rules. Khanna appears to have studied from the same playbook while publicly denouncing it.
Data from Unusual Whales, cited in the Post's reporting, shows Khanna's overall returns in 2025 slightly underperformed the market. That detail, however, does little to blunt the force of the Nvidia trade itself. A single well-timed bet on the right AI stock can deliver a windfall that dwarfs a year of broad-market returns. And the question is not whether Khanna beats the S&P 500 every quarter, it is whether a lawmaker who oversees defense AI procurement should be profiting from AI stocks at all.
Congress has tried and failed over the years to rein in stock trading by its own members. A Republican-led bill called the Stop Insider Trading Act would add restrictions, but Democrats have criticized the measure as filled with loopholes. The result is legislative gridlock on the one ethics question that unites voters across the political spectrum: lawmakers should not be trading on information they receive because of their jobs.
The bipartisan nature of the problem is worth acknowledging. Republicans Greene, McCaul, and Mullin appear on the same AI-trading lists as Pelosi and Khanna. Internal tensions within both parties have not produced a clean bill that both sides can support. Every session, members talk about reform. Every session, the money keeps flowing.
But the Khanna case carries a special sting because of who he claims to be. This is a lawmaker who has built a brand on economic populism, who campaigns alongside Bernie Sanders against billionaires, and who tells voters he supports banning the very trades his wife's trust executes. When your public identity is built on fighting a system you are simultaneously benefiting from, the contradiction is not a minor footnote. It is the whole story.
Khanna's claim that he has "no input" in his wife's trust may be technically accurate. But voters are not accountants. They see a congressman whose subcommittee oversees AI procurement, whose wife bought shares in the biggest AI chipmaker in the country, and whose household pocketed a six-figure return while he publicly demanded that other members stop trading. That picture does not require a forensic auditor to interpret.
Pompliano's firm flagged the possibility that Khanna "could have been privy to inside information." No specific evidence supporting that claim has been presented, and Khanna denies involvement. But the mere plausibility of the suspicion, given his committee role, the timing, and the sector, illustrates exactly why congressional stock trading bans exist as a proposal in the first place.
Pelosi's trading record has been a punchline and a scandal for years. Her influence in Washington remains formidable, but on the stock-trading issue, she at least never pretended to be on the other side of the argument. Khanna did. And that makes his windfall harder to explain away.
If Congress cannot ban its members from trading stocks they have privileged information about, voters should at least know who is cashing in, and who is doing it while lecturing everyone else about fairness.