A trust linked to the wife of Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), one of Congress's most vocal advocates for banning lawmakers from trading stocks, sold Nvidia shares near their peak, weeks before scandal engulfed the company, sending its stock plunging. The scandal also led to Jensen Huang's ouster as CEO. The sale let the trust avoid a drop of about 26% in Nvidia's share price.
Trade With Congress, a congressional trade tracker run by Altoneer, flagged the sale in Khanna's financial disclosures. The tracker noted that the transaction came just before reports surfaced that Huang had a relationship with a woman U.S. intelligence officials suspect of working for China.
Disclosure trackers show two sales of Nvidia stock by the trust, on Sept. 4 and Oct. 7, each valued at $1,001 to $15,000. The Oct. 7 sale came one day after Nvidia's record close on Oct. 6, according to Gadget Review.
Khanna's office claims inside knowledge played no role. A spokesperson for the congressman, who backs a congressional stock-trading ban, told The California Post that the transactions had nothing to do with information he obtained in office.
"Neither Rep. Khanna nor anyone on his staff received any briefing on Megaspeed, Jensen, or any counterintelligence risks tied to Nvidia," the spokesperson wrote in a text message. "He had zero knowledge of this incident until the New York Times report. Khanna does not trade stocks and provided zero direction or input into any trades."
Khanna has said that neither he nor his family makes trades directly. According to Khanna, his household's investments sit in a diversified trust that his in-laws established before his marriage, and an independent third-party trustee manages the holdings. However, there are certainly reasons to be suspicious.
Meanwhile, President Trump also sold Nvidia stock - about two weeks before Khanna.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement to Reuters that third-party financial institutions independently manage the president’s portfolio and replicate ”recognized indexes, such as the Schwab 1000.”
In the case of Khanna, his committee assignments put him close to the issues at the center of the scandal. He sits on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and serves as ranking member of the House Armed Services subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems. He also belongs to the Taiwan Caucus and the High Tech Caucus.
The congressman and Huang have also shared a stage together. In April, the two appeared together at Stanford for a discussion titled "U.S. Leadership in AI with NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jensen Huang and Congressman Ro Khanna." The event focused on preserving American leadership in artificial intelligence and building the domestic tech workforce.
The woman at the center of this scandal is Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed. The allegations are that she collected intelligence for Beijing and helped route high-end Nvidia chips to Chinese users in breach of U.S. export controls, as we detailed earlier this week.
The fallout has triggered a number of investigations. Nvidia's board has launched its own independent investigation. The US Justice Department is looking into Megaspeed for potential export control violations and the FBI is looking into the alleged intelligence operation. Nvidia says it has no reason to believe that anyone has breached national security or trade secrets. Huang has admitted to infidelity but has said nothing about the espionage. Beijing has dismissed the allegations as baseless.
Nvidia stock fell 4.3% on Monday, the first trading day after news of the investigation broke. Fox Business reported that the company lost more than $427 billion in market value over two sessions amid the scandal and a larger selloff in technology stocks.
Another factor working against Khanna is that his trading record has already drawn scrutiny. In December 2023, he proposed barring members of Congress from holding and trading individual stocks. In August, the New York Post reported that his family trusts made 5,402 trades in 2025, with volume of up to $165.4 million, including up to $70.6 million in sales. The Post also reported that his wife's February 2024 Nvidia purchase, a position worth $100,000 to $250,000, returned 143%. Common Cause ranked Khanna the third most profitable congressional trader of 2025.
Khanna's spokesperson also sought to flip the script and shift attention toward the White House, calling for scrutiny of the Trump administration's handling of Huang.
"Khanna believes there needs to be an investigation into what the administration knew about Jensen and any of Jensen's ties to China that could have compromised national security," the spokesperson said.
Khanna was one of several lawmakers whose households reported selling Nvidia stock before the plunge. According to Quantellect, the wife of Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) sold $15,001 to $50,000 in Nvidia shares on Oct. 2, and the wife of Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA) sold $1,001 to $15,000 on Sept. 25. Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-CA) reported selling $1,001 to $15,000 on Oct. 20.
Khanna has called for a classified briefing for Congress on the matter. Republican committee chairs are seeking a closed-door briefing with Huang as the Justice Department and FBI investigations continue, and House Republicans have since threatened him with a subpoena.
***
