What's the Deal With Nancy Pelosi and the Bloom Energy Stock Surge? — SkimNews
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- Paul Pelosi's accounts purchased 15,000 Bloom Energy shares and 200 call options on July 24 and July 28, transactions reported in ranges totaling $3 million to $12 million, with the call options carrying a $100 strike price expiring June 2027.
- The July 28 purchase came the same day Bloom Energy reported record second-quarter revenue above $1 billion after market close, and the stock rose 26.5% by the July 30 close — netting the Pelosi household a 26% gain on the position.
- Pelosi voted against H.R.700 on July 22, a House bill to tighten restrictions on lawmaker and family stock trading, just two days before the first Bloom Energy transactions were executed.
- The trades were not publicly disclosed until August 21 under the 2012 STOCK Act, more than three weeks after the purchases were made, and later appeared on congressional trading tracker Unusual Whales.
- Bloom Energy spent $60,000 on federal lobbying in the second quarter on tax issues involving fuel cells, electrolyzers, hydrogen, and carbon capture, according to investment research platform Quiver Quantitative.
- A Pelosi spokesperson told Barron's that "Speaker Pelosi does not own any stocks and has no knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions," and fact-checkers have found no evidence supporting several widely circulated insider-trading claims about the family's trades.
Why it matters: The two-day gap between Pelosi's vote against H.R.700 and the first Bloom purchase — followed by Bloom's 26.5% post-earnings surge and the stock's 6% premarket jump on disclosure day — will intensify bipartisan scrutiny of the STOCK Act's disclosure-only framework, even as Pelosi's office denies involvement and no insider-trading evidence has been substantiated.
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