Shares of the cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks plummeted in after-hours trading on February 20 by nearly 20% after the company lowered its billings and revenue guidance for the rest of fiscal year 2024. The next day, Nancy Pelosi’s husband purchased up to $250,000 worth of call options in the company’s stock, betting that it will be above $200 a share when the options expire on January 17, 2025. The purchase was on top of the up to $1 million in Palo Alto Network call options that Mr. Pelosi had purchased days earlier.
The investments caught many observers by surprise. “Why is Nancy Pelosi continuing to buy Palo Alto stock while everyone else is selling,” asked the financial information company Quiver Quantitative in a post on X.
Donald Shaw
According to a disclosure posted online yesterday, one of Nancy Pelosi’s longtime political allies recently began working for Palo Alto Networks. Vin Roberti, chairman of government affairs firm Roberti Global, was retained as a lobbyist by Palo Alto Networks on January 1, along with two other people at his firm. Roberti has been a long-time Democratic fundraiser, and according to his bio he is currently a legacy member of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) “Speaker’s Cabinet,” a program that gave big donors special access to Pelosi. Roberti has donated $96,600 to Pelosi’s campaign and joint fundraising committee, but he has given much more to the DCCC. He has donated more than $436,000 to the DCCC and from 2018 through 2021 he raised more than $330,000 in bundled contributions for the organization, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Roberti was a co-chair of Pelosi’s Hold the House Victory Fund in 2020.
Sludge asked Pelosi’s office if the representative had spoken to Roberti about Palo Alto Networks, but did not receive a response.
