A tech startup has placed a Nancy Pelosi impersonator in the front row at a UFC fight as a promotional stunt for the launch of a new app that lets users “invest like a politician.”
Autopilot co-founder Christopher Josephs, who is based in Los Angeles, said thousands of people downloaded the company's trading app over the weekend after the company spent six figures to sponsor the UFC fight between Sean O'Malley and Merab Dvalishvili in Las Vegas.
Josephs hired an actress and dressed her in a pink pantsuit and sunglasses to look just like the former Speaker of the House.
He also made sure the “fake Pelosi” was visible in the front row.
As O'Malley left the locker room and entered the ring, cameras captured the “fake Pelosi” standing in front of the crowd, a few feet from the ring.
“The parody worked,” Josephs said, as people took photos and uploaded them to their social media accounts.
“Millions of people have come to understand our message about not trading with politicians,” he wrote to X.
“Although I was definitely given the finger along the way,” he added.
The company also had a Tesla Cybertruck that it had turned into a moving billboard, driving around Las Vegas with a banner reading “Pelosi 2024 Invest Like a Politician” as if it were a campaign ad.
Josephs and his team are also behind the infamous “Pelosi Tracker” social media account, which monitors stock trading by San Francisco congresswoman and her husband, venture capitalist and real estate investor Paul Pelosi.
Pelosi is one of the wealthiest lawmakers in the US, thanks to the power couple's vast investment portfolio.
Pelosi said her position as top lawmaker It gives you access to information that can influence market decisions.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has resisted calls to ban lawmakers and their spouses from owning and trading stocks.
Earlier this month, at an event in Austin, a comedian made fun of the real Speaker Pelosi by dressing in Democratic attire and approaching her to ask for stock trading advice.
According to Autopilot's website, users have made more than 9 million transactions, collectively investing more than $300 million.
The company says more than 90,000 investors are currently using the app, and that the platform was “built by the team behind the popular Pelosi Tracker account.”
“Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker” is an X-account with over 750,000 followers that lists stock trades made by members of Congress.
