'Could be an enormous scam': Insider trading suspicions grow after Trump tariff pause

The timing of U.S. President Donald Trump's Wednesday social media post declaring that "this is a great time to buy" stocks and subsequent announcement of a three-month tariff pause quickly raised suspicions of possible insider trading and market manipulation by the highest levels of the American government.

The S&P 500, which tracks the performance of the nation's top publicly traded companies, posted its largest single-day gain since 2008 after Trump pumped the brakes on part of his tariff scheme, which had sent global markets into a tailspin in recent days.

Trump announced his decision hours after effectively urging Americans to buy stocks in a morning post on Truth Social—though at the time there was no public information indicating that any kind of tariff announcement was imminent.

"How is this not market manipulation?" asked Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). "If you're a Trump supporter and you did what he said and you bought, then you did great. On the other hand, if you're a retiree or a senior or somebody in the middle class over the last few days that didn't have the tolerance for risk and you decided to sell, you got screwed."

When Trump's pause announcement came hours later, U.S. equities skyrocketed, adding over $5 trillion in value to the market in a matter of hours. Elon Musk, a top Trump lieutenant and the world's richest man, saw his wealth—which is largely tied up in Tesla stock—soar by nearly $30 billion on Wednesday, according to Forbes' real-time billionaire tracker.

"Who benefited? And who made money?" Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) asked in a video posted to social media Wednesday evening. "This should matter to you, too, because this could be an enormous scam."

"The question is, who close to Trump knew that he was going to suspend the tariffs?" said Murphy. "Which of his Mar-a-Lago friends or his billionaire advisers were able to capitalize on that inside information?"

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) recommended late Wednesday that "any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now."

"I've been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor. Disclosure deadline is May 15th," she wrote. "We're about to learn a few things. It's time to ban insider trading in Congress."

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) grilled Trump trade representative Jamieson Greer on the tariff pause, saying, "It looks like your boss just pulled the rug out from under you and paused the tariffs—the taxes—on the American people."

"Is this market manipulation?" Horsford asked. "If it's not market manipulation, what is it? Who's benefiting? What billionaire just got richer?"

Last week, Trump himself suggested that he's deliberately manipulating equity prices, reposting a video claiming that he is "purposely crashing the market" as part of a "secret game" that "could make you rich."

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the agency tasked with investigating insider trading and other violations, is now headed by Wall Street-friendly Trump appointee Paul Atkins, whom the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate confirmed on Wednesday.

The Wall Street Journalreported that all three of the major U.S. stock indexes closed Wednesday "with moves unseen since some of the most volatile stretches in recent decades."

"The S&P 500 jumped 9.5% on Wednesday, its largest one-day percentage gain since the financial crisis of 2008," the Journal noted. "The Dow surged more than 2,900 points, or 7.9%—its biggest daily increase ever in point terms and the biggest percentage gain since the coronavirus swept the globe in March 2020. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite soared 12.2%, its highest one-day jump since the dot-com era."

In the days leading up to the tariff pause, Trump faced widespread criticism and backlash, including from some of his billionaire supporters. Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager, had urged Trump to enact "a 30-, 60-, or 90-day pause before the tariffs are implemented."

"This was brilliantly executed," Ackman gushed after Trump announced the partial tariff pause. "Textbook, Art of the Deal."