Rep. Ro Khanna, one of the loudest voices for banning stock trades by members of Congress, reported household sales of Nvidia stock weeks before a scandal around the chipmaker’s CEO sent its shares sliding.
Story Highlights
- Khanna’s wife sold Nvidia shares on Friday, September 4, and Wednesday, October 7, according to his disclosure reports.
- Each sale was reported in the smallest range lawmakers use: $1,001 to $15,000. His family trusts recorded 5,402 trades in 2025, according to reports.
- The October 7 sale came one day after Nvidia’s all-time high on Tuesday, October 6.
- Khanna says the family money sits in a trust run by a third-party trustee and that neither he nor his family picks the trades.
What Khanna Reported
Ro Khanna is a Democratic congressman from California’s 17th District who has pushed to bar members of Congress from trading individual stocks while in office. In December 2023, he publicly proposed barring lawmakers from holding and trading them. His own reports show his wife sold Nvidia stock twice in the fall, each sale worth between $1,001 and $15,000. Members of Congress must report stock trades by themselves and their spouses under a law called the STOCK Act, but they report only a dollar range, not the exact amount.
Khanna’s answer is that he does not make these trades. He says his household’s investments sit in a diversified trust that his in-laws set up before his marriage, and that a third-party trustee manages it on its own. The reports do not name that trustee.
The Scandal That Hit Nvidia
Nvidia makes the advanced computer chips that power artificial intelligence, and it has been one of the most valuable companies in the world. In October, a news report said CEO Jensen Huang had a relationship with Alice Huang, a former executive at Megaspeed, a company based in Singapore. U.S. authorities had concluded she was working for Chinese intelligence, according to reports. She is accused of gathering information for Beijing and helping steer Nvidia chips to Chinese buyers despite U.S. export limits.
On Sunday, November 8, Huang admitted to an affair but did not address the spying claims. Nvidia’s board opened an independent investigation. The board said it has “no reason to believe” U.S. national security or company secrets were compromised, and Beijing calls the accusations unsubstantiated. Nvidia shares fell 4.3% on Monday, November 9, and kept falling through Wednesday, November 11.
Why the Timing Draws Fire
Khanna sits on the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, which studies the security contest between the U.S. and China. Critics point to that seat, and to his push for a trading ban, and say the sales look bad for a lawmaker who wants others held to a strict rule.
The record also shows the other side. Khanna’s household also bought Nvidia shares between June and September, so the fall sales may not have cut the family’s stake. The sales were small, and no official body has found that anyone in his household knew about the Huang reports before they became public. Khanna himself called for a classified briefing for Congress on the national security risks after the scandal broke.
A Big Household Portfolio
The Nvidia sales are a small slice of a very active account. Khanna’s family trusts recorded 5,402 trades in 2025, with trading volume of as much as $165.4 million, according to reports. The same reports say Khanna’s wife bought Nvidia stock in February 2024, a stake later valued at between $100,000 and $250,000.
That is the heart of the criticism. A lawmaker can say a trustee makes the calls, but when the household trades thousands of times a year, every well-timed sale draws a second look. Khanna’s own answer to that problem is the one he has pushed for years: a ban on individual stock trading by members of Congress.
Sources:
finance.yahoo.com, dailywire.com
