WASHINGTON – Congressional Democrats on Thursday demanded answers over whether President Donald Trump may have tipped off his allies or members of his family to buy stock hours before he reversed course on global tariffs, a move that sent stocks soaring.
Leading the charge, Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) directed the Office of Government Ethics, an independent agency within the executive branch, to conduct “an immediate review” into whether any White House or executive branch employees — including special government employees such as Elon Musk — may have violated federal ethics laws relating to insider trading.
The senators laid out the suspicious sequence of events that played out on Wednesday in a letter to OGE acting Director Jamieson Greer and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.
“On the morning of April 9, 2025, President Trump posted on Truth Social at 9:33 AM: ‘BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!,’” reads their letter. “The President subsequently posted at 9:37 AM: ‘THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.’”
Hours later, at 1:18 p.m., Trump announced on Truth Social, his social media platform, that he was imposing a 90-day pause on virtually all of the sweeping tariffs he’d put in place days before. The U.S. stock market promptly rebounded, and by the close of the day at 4 p.m., the S&P recorded a 9.5% single-day gain — the index’s largest gain since 2008.
“This sequence of events raises grave legal and ethics concerns,” said Schiff and Gallego.
They specifically note that stock in Tesla, the electric car company owned by Musk, Trump’s billionaire buddy who already has been personally enriching himself by cozying up to Trump, increased 18% immediately following the president’s announcement to pause most tariffs, which Musk had publicly opposed.
Schiff and Gallego ask OGE to investigate whether any White House or executive branch employees may have broken laws relating to stock trades or financial transactions preceding Trump’s tariff news. They also ask for a review of communications between executive employees and external parties, “including financial institutions, brokers, dealers, investment advisors, or business associates, that may have included non-public information.”
They give Wiles until April 18 to answer some questions, too. They ask whether any White House or executive branch employees knew in advance about Trump’s change in tariff policies, if any members of Trump’s family knew and whether any White House or executive branch workers were involved in deliberations over changing tariff policies.
Asked why it appears the president may have engaged in market manipulation with tariffs, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said people should just be celebrating Trump for taking “decisive action” with his announcement.
“It is the responsibility of the president of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of nonstop media fearmongering,” Desai said in a statement. “Democrats railed against China’s cheating for decades, and now they’re playing partisan games instead of celebrating President Trump’s decisive action yesterday to finally corner China.”
Trump, meanwhile, spent Wednesday evening laughing with financial industry executives about how much money they made in the past 24 hours.
“He made $2.5 billion today, and he made $900 million,” the president said to laughs, pointing at billionaire Charles Schwab and others during a meeting in the Oval Office.
Other Democrats are putting the issue front and center on Capitol Hill.
Reps. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) and Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, wrote directly to the president and to members of his Cabinet with questions about the timeline of Trump’s deliberations on tariffs and the roles of various agencies in those talks.
“This administration claims their tariff pause was all part of their plan, and also claims the pause wasn’t market manipulation — it’s hard to believe both are true,” Horsford said in a statement. “My constituents in Nevada, and every single American, deserve to know who is benefiting and how they are benefitting from the market turmoil that’s harming so many working-class people and families right now.”
Key senators also raised questions.
“Was that market manipulation?” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wondered regarding Trump’s social media messages. “Was it corruption in plain sight?”
“Americans deserve to know whether President Trump or anyone else in his administration manipulated the market to benefit themselves or their donors, while working people in small businesses were paying the price,” she said.
“What Trump pulled yesterday has the look of some awfully sketchy market manipulation,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a Thursday hearing with trade and tax nominees.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called the situation “outrageous.”
“Would I be surprised if there are people who, hours before, knew exactly what Trump was going to do in rescinding his tariff proposals, understanding that the stock market would soar and you’d make huge amounts of money?” Sanders said in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “Would I be shocked if we learned about that in the days to come? No, I would not.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) noted it’s not just White House employees or Trump’s family members who may have partaken in a market play.
“Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now,” she said on social media. “I’ve been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor. Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We’re about to learn a few things.”
Ocasio-Cortez joined colleagues on a Thursday letter to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), asking that he call on all House lawmakers to immediately file and release their so-called Periodic Trading Reports for any stock transactions conducted over the past week.
“The public has the right to know whether anyone in the Congress profited from the considerable market instability and economic chaos caused by President Trump and his administration over the past week,” they said.
A Johnson spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There’s another conflict of interest amid all of this: Greer, the acting director at OGE, is also Trump’s U.S. Trade Representative, whose job is to advise on and enact the president’s tariff policy. It’s not clear why Greer has both of these jobs or how he could lead an impartial investigation into Trump’s potential insider trading related to his tariff policies.
An OGE spokesman declined comment.
Greer was in the middle of testifying to a House committee about Trump’s trade strategy, or lack thereof, on Wednesday when the president announced he was backing off his tariffs. That left Greer scrambling to make sense of Trump’s chaotic actions in real time, as one committee member, Horsford, laid into him.
“So the trade representative hasn’t spoken to the president of the United States about a global reordering of trade?” the Nevada Democrat said as Greer sat silently. “Yet he announced it on a tweet? WTF! Who is in charge? It looks like your boss just pulled the rug out from under you. There is no strategy.”
Now shouting, Horsford added, “Is this market manipulation?”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the day Trump met with financial industry executives.