Bresnahan Traded Ai Stock While He Pushed For Data Centers

GOP Rep. Rob Bresnahan last year bought stock in a major supplier for data centers that subsequently boomed in value — at the same time he was encouraging data centers to be built in his Pennsylvania district.

In June, Bresnahan bought between $1,001 and $15,000 of stock in Credo Technology, a company that provides electric cables and chips for data centers, according to a House report he filed in July. Bresnahan spokesperson Hannah Pope said the purchase totaled $1,454. Since then, the share price of Credo stock has risen about 109 percent — joining the set of AI companies ballooning in value.

The trade, which has not been previously reported, comes as data centers have become an increasingly hot-button political issue and his Democratic opponent has sought to make Bresnahan’s stock trading a top issue in the campaign.

Bresnahan, a top target for Democrats in the midterms, has been under scrutiny for his stock trading. Among his trades, Bresnahan sold up to $130,000 in Medicaid providers’ stock a week before he voted to make cuts to Medicaid in Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” NBC News recently reported.

The first-term congressman campaigned in 2024 on a pledge to support a ban on congressional stock trading.

“Whether or not they have done something wrong, the idea that we can buy and sell stocks while voting on legislation that will have a direct impact on these companies is wrong and needs to come to an end immediately,” he wrote in a letter in the Pottsville (Pa.) Republican Herald.

But since taking office a year ago, he has made 648 trades, making him the fifth-most-active stock trader among members of Congress, according to Capitol Trades, which tracks congressional stock trading.

Two months before buying Credo stock, Bresnahan talked up the potential of data centers to create jobs in his northeastern Pennsylvania district.

“I am pleased to hear that companies are looking to Northeastern Pennsylvania for their data centers, which can serve as catalysts for economic growth and technological innovation for our region,” he told the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader in April.

In July, Bresnahan joined Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in praising private equity firm Blackstone after it announced plans to invest $25 billion in northeastern Pennsylvania to build data centers and power plants to power them. An Emerson College poll in December found that 54 percent of people in northeastern Pennsylvania opposed building data centers in their area, though 61 percent said they would create a significant number of jobs.

Data centers have been blamed for increasing electricity prices for Americans who live near them, an issue that Bresnahan’s Democratic opponent in this year’s midterm election, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, recently raised. When asked if Cognetti supports the Blackstone project, a spokesperson would not address the project by name but said in a statement: “Mayor Paige welcomes investment into Northeastern Pennsylvania — she opposes members of Congress trading off of it.”

Before buying Credo stock in June, Bresnahan sold between $1,001 and $15,000 in the stock in both January and March.

His office has previously said that Bresnahan’s financial adviser made the trades and that he doesn’t know which individual stocks were bought or sold on his behalf.

As Congress debates whether to ban stock trading by members, last month Bresnahan signed on to a discharge petition to bring the ban to the floor. He said in December that he has told his financial advisers to stop trading stocks until Congress passes such a ban.

“Like Governor Shapiro said in his own words, Rep. Bresnahan will always support projects that bring new jobs to Northeastern Pennsylvania,” Pope, the spokeswoman, said of the Blackstone initiative. Asked about the timing of the Credo purchase in relation to his advocacy for data centers in his district, Pope said it was “irrelevant because Rob doesn't trade his own stocks.”

Pope also pointed out that Cognetti owns under $1,000 in a Vanguard mutual fund that includes Blackstone among its 3,500 stocks, per a financial disclosure form. She noted that Cognetti has under $1,000 in a separate mutual fund with Credo among its 1,300 stocks.

“Mayor Paige does not own any individual stocks and supports a ban on congressional stock trading to stop politicians like Rob Bresnahan from trading off of their votes in Washington,” the Cognetti spokesperson said in a statement.