How Congress Is Cashing In on the AI Boom
Roughly one in five members of Congress has household investments in the industry.
Congress has so far failed to regulate artificial intelligence, despite the increasingly dire warnings about the threats it poses. At the same time, lawmakers are profiting from the AI boom. Roughly one in five members of Congress has household investments in companies developing AI models or supplying the infrastructure behind it, according to our analysis of recent congressional financial disclosures.
At least 106 members of Congress, their spouses, or their dependent children hold stocks or other investments in AI developers, chipmakers, cloud-software providers, data-center companies, or specialized AI firms, the disclosures show. Members of Congress only disclose the value of their financial assets in broad ranges, but we calculated that as of September 17, the members’ AI investments are worth between $82.8 million and $325 million.
The holdings are concentrated in tech giants like Nvidia, Meta, and Alphabet. Six companies account for more than half of the value of AI assets held by lawmakers. But some lawmakers also hold and trade shares in smaller companies such as BigBear.ai and C3 AI, as well as in little-known private start-ups. At least 44 of the lawmakers who own shares in AI stocks serve on committees responsible for legislation on issues like AI safety, consumer protections, semiconductor policy, and trade with China. (There is no law limiting the ability of members to own stocks, even in the companies they oversee.)
One powerful legislator with money in AI development is House Republican Conference chair Lisa McClain of Michigan. Since December 2025, McClain’s spouse has purchased up to $515,000 worth of stock in four AI companies, including three private firms whose shares are not available on public exchanges. The buys included up to $250,000 of private stock in Elon Musk’s xAI in December 2025, just days before the Pentagon announced a major integration with the company.
Several other lawmakers’ households also hold stakes in private AI companies. Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, disclosed that her spouse owns a 10 percent interest in Nokturnal AI, though the filing valued the stake at $1,000 or less. Nokturnal AI, a subsidiary of the defense firm OKSI, was tapped by the Pentagon in February for its “Drone Dominance” program. House Republican Policy Committee chair Kevin Hern of Oklahoma has family-related holdings of up to $3.8 million worth of stock in Amazon, Alphabet, semiconductor-equipment companies, and an AI-focused fund. Freshman Republican Representative Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania has up to $4.5 million of AI assets in his portfolio.
This is by no means a GOP-only trend. New Jersey Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer’s household reports holdings valued between $8.5 million and $38 million across the AI supply chain, including developers like Microsoft, chip designers like Nvidia, chipmakers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the equipment company Applied Materials, and the data-center infrastructure provider Vertiv. Gottheimer has been named cochair of the House Democratic Commission on Artificial Intelligence and the Innovation Economy, a panel that is developing the party’s AI policy and legislative agenda.
Another Democratic AI-stock buyer this year is California Representative Gil Cisneros, who made dozens of purchases worth up to $1.2 million in stocks, including Nvidia, Amazon, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and TSMC. A member of the House Armed Services Committee, Cisneros also traded shares in the AI-powered defense contractors Palantir, Oracle, and Snowflake. And Representative April McClain Delaney, a Maryland Democrat who oversees AI as part of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, reported an interest valued at as much as $500,000 in the drug-development company Zephyr AI through a family trust.
The largest AI portfolio identified by Sludge, based on its maximum estimated value, belongs to the household of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi. Her husband, Paul, reported holdings in Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Nvidia, Broadcom, and the drug- discovery company Tempus AI worth between $28.4 million and $134.9 million. Throughout 2026, Paul Pelosi also purchased around $1.3 million to $2.6 million worth of Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, and Tempus shares. And he has up to $12 million worth of shares in Bloom Energy, an AI energy- infrastructure firm supporting the growth of data centers.
The path for federal AI regulation runs through key congressional committees in which around one in five members owns shares in AI companies. The House Energy and Commerce Committee considers issues of data privacy and who pays for power-transmission lines to data centers, while the House Judiciary Committee oversees issues including copyright and antitrust matters. Each includes some 10 members who are currently invested in the AI industry, with stakes worth up to $9 million and $5 million, respectively. Congress’s next moves on AI could happen with lawmakers looking at their personal portfolios rather than the public interest.
