U.S. stocks plunged Thursday, a day after a powerful post-election rally, as investors dumped technology shares amid fears that Democrats’ sweeping midterm victories would slow the artificial-intelligence infrastructure boom.
The S&P 500 sank more than 3 percent during morning trading, putting it on pace for its worst day since the April 2025 selloff following President Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed more than 1,000 points, surrendering more than half of Wednesday’s advance.
Technology shares led the retreat. The Nasdaq Composite fell roughly 4 percent to 5 percent, trading more than 10 percent below its October record close. A close below that threshold would confirm the index’s second correction this year. The Nasdaq 100, which tracks the largest nonfinancial companies listed on the exchange, fell as much as 6.24 percent.
Within the S&P 500, technology led the decline, falling about 5.1 percent, while consumer discretionary dropped roughly 4 percent. Industrials fell about 2.2 percent, materials 1.9 percent, and communication services 1.8 percent. Financials lost 1.8 percent and real estate slipped 1.4 percent. By contrast, defensive pockets held up better: energy rose about 0.6 percent and consumer staples gained roughly 0.3 percent, while utilities and health care were nearly flat to modestly lower. Only two of the index’s 11 sectors were higher, underscoring a rotation away from the artificial-intelligence infrastructure complex toward more stable areas of the market.
Some of this year’s most popular AI trades suffered the sharpest losses as investors reassessed companies whose growth depends on continued spending on chips, computing capacity and data-center equipment.
Nvidia and Broadcom each fell about 9 percent, as did Oracle. The iShares Semiconductor ETF dropped more than 11 percent. Tesla and SpaceX each lost about 10 percent.
Companies that rent out AI computing capacity also plunged. CoreWeave fell about 14 percent, Nebius slid 17 percent, and IREN shed 19 percent, extending losses from Wednesday.
Qualcomm dropped about 13 percent after its quarterly earnings beat analysts’ estimates but its earnings outlook disappointed. Revenue from its smartphone-chip business fell 26 percent to $5.14 billion, missing Wall Street expectations.
The election results added a political obstacle to an industry already facing questions about the cost of its expansion. Democrats secured majorities in both the House and Senate and captured key governorships, raising the prospect of tighter scrutiny and restrictions on new data centers.
Texas emerged as a particular concern. Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who defeated Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, campaigned for an immediate moratorium on data-center development. Developers in the state were already contending with a suspension of approvals under Abbott.
Data center-related measures appeared on ballots in at least 41 jurisdictions across 10 states, and voters approved moratoriums or restrictions in 40 of those. This is one of the clearest signs that the midterm elections were in fact the “AI election.”
Dan Ives, a technology analyst at Yorkville Ives, estimated that roughly 10 percent of planned U.S. data centers “will not happen now.” He said Texas accounts for roughly 25 percent to 30 percent of expected data-center capacity.
UBS analysts separately estimated that potential construction pauses could put about 30 percent of expected U.S. data-center capacity additions in 2028 at risk.
Slower construction could reduce orders for semiconductors, servers, cooling systems and power equipment, spreading the effects across businesses that have expanded to meet demand from the AI industry.
Thursday’s plunge marked a sharp reversal of the broader market’s initial response to the election. The Dow surged more than 1,500 points Wednesday, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each gained more than 1 percent.
Several large technology companies rallied Wednesday as investors bet that slower construction could ease pressure on their cash flows and increase the value of existing facilities by limiting competing supply. Chipmakers and smaller data-center companies fell even during that rally.
By Thursday morning, the selling had reached the cloud giants themselves, with Amazon and Alphabet also trading lower.
The political uncertainty compounded longer-running concerns about the returns on massive AI investments. The largest cloud computing companies have committed hundreds of billions of dollars to data centers, chips and power projects, increasingly turning to debt markets to help finance the spending.
The stock declines came despite encouraging economic news. Weekly applications for unemployment benefits fell below every forecast in a survey of economists. Investors next face Friday’s monthly employment report.
European stock indexes held up better than their U.S. counterparts following Wednesday’s steep decline in oil prices. Oil recovered some ground Thursday, with U.S. crude trading around $90 a barrel and Brent near $97.
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Stock market meltdown as $2.5trillion is wiped off Wall Street after Democrats’ midterms victory rally turns to financial carnage
The stock markets have taken a massive $2.5 trillion hit just one day after the Democrats’ blue tsunami drowned Republicans in the midterm elections.
Stocks related to the artificial intelligence trade were decimated – with tech companies supplying data centers and microchips being the hardest hit.
The nationwide Democratic victories triggered financial carnage for Wall Street, as their control of the Senate raises the possibility that governments may pause construction of more data centers across America.
That would mean fewer purchases of AI chips and other super intelligence tech-related products, which are currently driving much of the US economy’s growth.
As a result of the uncertainty, shares of chip manufacturers Nvidia and Broadcom saw stunning losses on Thursday – NVDA fell 9.3 percent on the day while AVGO dropped 10.5 percent – and competitor Qualcomm finished the session down 9.5 percent.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended the day down 5.5 percent, putting it firmly in correction territory after the gradual declines seen over the last four weeks – while the benchmark S&P 500 index fell 4.3 percent.
Both indices saw their worst one-day declines since President Donald Trump shook markets worldwide in April 2025 after announcing his ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs.
All in all, Wall Street pros and the retirement accounts of regular Americans are staring down a total of $2.5 trillion in paper losses.
The losses were broad, with every sector in the S&P 500 losing ground.
According to eToro analyst Jakub Rochlitz, the most obvious catalyst for the selloff is markets pricing in the midterm results.
‘But the first domino to fall was Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s growth numbers, which failed to impress investors at the beginning of October,’ Rochlitz told the Daily Mail.
‘That made the market more sensitive to negative news, which has piled up in recent days.’
‘The midterm election result didn’t really create a new fear, it was just the gust of wind that pushed over the house of cards that was already getting shaky,’ former Goldman Sachs analyst Nic Puckrin told the Daily Mail.
The huge selloff is also being helped along by the sky-high amount of leverage – or borrowed money – among investors.
By some indicators, markets are trading at a level of speculation not seen since the dot-com bubble: Money borrowed to finance investing – so-called ‘margin debt’ – hit a record $1.5 trillion in June, up roughly 50 percent from a year earlier.
According to Fed data, U.S. households hold a record 48 percent of their financial assets in stocks – at the peak of the dot-com bubble, that figure was 38.7 percent.
‘What the markets were missing was a spark to start the selloff. It seems that the mix of the election result and some disappointing tech earnings results was enough to tip markets over the edge,’ Rochlitz told us.
A notable loser today is Elon Musk, who spent nearly half a billion dollars on the 2026 midterms supporting Republican candidates across the country.
Shares of his electric car company, Tesla, are down almost 12 percent today. When combined with yesterday’s brutal post-election losses, shares of Tesla have lost nearly 15 percent in two days – knocking about $39.4 billion off his fortune.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is down more than 12 percent since the election, for a shocking $113 billion in losses for Musk. Taken together, he has suffered $152 billion in paper losses since the election.
Democratic Party leaders have said they plan to take a harder line on AI regulation as they prepare to take control of Congress in January 2027.
Their priorities include mandatory safety testing, federal oversight of advanced AI models, restrictions on data-center expansion and protections against rising electricity bills.
‘It will take months for the market to figure out what impact the Democrats will really have on the AI buildout, and the impact on data center construction will take even longer to actually materialize,’ Puckrin told us.
The next signals to watch will be guidance from hyperscalers on future capital expenditures, as well as whether they start shifting more of their future infrastructure projects outside the US to Asia or even the Middle East.
In the background, the success of a huge wave of local anti-AI ballot measures exposed widespread opposition to data centers, as voters across the country overwhelmingly backed measures to restrict or prevent their construction.
They ranged from outright construction bans and temporary moratoriums to restrictions on energy consumption and requirements for residents to approve projects before work can begin.
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Investors said to doubt Anthropic’s valuation
Anthropic’s major investors are unsure whether the company can reach the expected $1.5 trillion valuation, the Wall Street Journal reported. According to people familiar with the matter, three investors doubt Anthropic can raise $100 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) later this month, predicting the artificial intelligence giant will more likely be valued at around $1 trillion.
One of the sources argued that the current drop in AI stocks could discourage other investors from taking a risk on Anthropic, suggesting the company could even delay the IPO. According to the report, Anthropic executives and its advisers should meet in the coming days to discuss the matter.
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MAGA millionaire tech bros get a brutal Texas reality check after fleeing California’s liberals – only to see Democrats sweep the state
“At some point, incompetence becomes so breathtaking that you begin wondering whether anybody in Republican leadership has ever successfully managed anything more complicated than ordering lunch”
Gung-ho MAGA venture capitalists who moved to Texas to escape liberal politics in tech hubs like California are expressing regret after the 2026 midterm elections turned the Lone Star state blue.
‘Ugh, I moved here to get away from the left lunacy,’ wrote tech investor and Launch co-founder Jason Calacanis on X.
Texas was among the biggest shocks of election night for President Donald Trump and his Republican allies. Governor Greg Abbott conceded to Gina Hinojosa, who became the first Democrat elected to the office since 1990.
In another upset, James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton, becoming the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas since 1988.
Calacanis, who moved from California to Texas in 2024, was quick to distance himself from the results as prediction markets reacted to the election.
‘Don’t blame me,’ he wrote, saying he had voted straight Republican and had not ‘ruined’ Texas like other Californians who had moved to the Lone Star State.
The election has posed challenges for the wider technology industry, particularly over the future of data centers, which have become a flashpoint in communities across Texas.
Talarico has called for data center companies to pay for their own energy, recycle water and obtain community consent, arguing that they should not drive up utility bills or take advantage of local communities.
Calacanis pushed back, insisting the industry already does more than meet those demands.
‘Data centers create jobs, pay taxes and donate to various community efforts,’ he wrote, adding that towns lucky enough to attract a data center should ‘extract as much money from them’ as possible for local schools and playgrounds.
Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, who moved from San Francisco to Austin in 2020, also weighed in, posting a lengthy screed on X.com attacking Republicans for failing to hold their majorities in Congress.
‘At some point, incompetence becomes so breathtaking that you begin wondering whether anybody in Republican leadership has ever successfully managed anything more complicated than ordering lunch,’ read Lonsdale’s post.
It described the election as an ‘electoral f***ing earthquake,’ citing Talarico’s victory, Abdul El-Sayed’s win in Michigan and Susan Collins’s loss in Maine.
‘Warning signs were flashing everywhere, and these arrogant, complacent jacka**** behaved like victory was something they were entitled to receive in the mail,’ it added.
Elon Musk, who spent almost half a billion dollars on the midterm elections and moved his home and key operations of Tesla, SpaceX and X to Texas beginning in 2020, also reacted online.
‘Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,’ he wrote on X.com on November 4.
Shortly afterward, he added: ‘Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time.’
Musk had campaigned against Talarico, who defeated Paxton in the Senate race by 55 percent to 43 percent, according to the Associated Press.
He had also claimed Talarico wanted to turn children transgender, but the Democrat went on to win the seat.
Musk, who led the Department of Government Efficiency under Trump in 2025, has previously said he feared Democrats could put him in jail if they regained power.
The political fallout was also playing out on Wall Street. Shares of Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, are down 15 percent in two days – knocking about $39.4 billion off his fortune.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is down more than 12 percent since the election, for a shocking $113 billion in losses. Taken together, Musk has suffered $152 billion in paper losses since the election.
Christian Garrett, a partner at 127 Ventures with connections to Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, struck a more defiant tone, writing on X that it was ‘time to get to work’ while praising the West and the technology sector.
The results also came as voters expressed concerns about the industry’s growing influence.
Exit polls found that 57 percent of voters believed AI would do more harm than good for society, compared with 24 percent who said it would do more good than harm, according to an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.
Meanwhile, 76 percent said they would oppose the construction of a data center in their community.
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Vance Wants an ‘Honest Conversation’? Fine, Here’s One.
I wanted to like JD Vance. I really did. But now I’m not going to pull any punches.
From Just The News:
“The reason we lost is the war,” [Vance] posted on X. “The president himself said so last night. If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest,” Vance went on. “But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”
He also said the main problem was not voter turnout, it was that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026. There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is.
Vance then referenced polling data he had seen showing voters wanted an end to the Iran war, a focus on cost of living issues, for the administration to put “America first,” and to reassess the U.S. relationship with Israel.
So were we to allow Iran to complete its nukes and start clamping down on Israel? Why? To make the Islamist horde like us?
Look, Vance is correct that the war was in fact a major voting issue. But let’s also acknowledge most of that is being driven by the Left still scrambling to tack anything they can onto President Trump. However, protection of the country, and frankly the whole of the West, transcends politics. Someone wanting to sit behind the Resolute Desk should understand that as a matter of instinct. Vance’s comments are a clear indication that he doesn’t and that his priorities are backward.
That understanding is the part the Vice President seems to have misplaced somewhere between the exit polls and his 2028 spreadsheet.
Nobody disputes the damage. Anyone who filled a tank this year felt it. Fuel prices took off after the shooting started in late February, and the president told The Wall Street Journal that “Iran was a piece of it” and that high fuel costs did more harm than anything else. Fine. Stipulated. The war cost us at the ballot box.
The question Vance wants to skip is whether that’s the right yardstick to be judging these matters. My own answer is that it decidedly is not. You don’t judge a war to keep a nuclear weapon out of the hands of men who chant “Death to America” by how it moved one midterm. You judge it by what happens if you lose it, or if you never fight it.
Vance dared someone to argue the war was worth the cost. Challenge accepted, and his boss beat me to it. Asked whether he’d do it again, Trump didn’t flinch: “Because long term, it’s the only answer. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
That’s the whole case in two sentences. Iran is choking shipping through the Strait of Hormuz right now without a bomb. Imagine the mullahs doing it with one, knowing nobody dares push back. Today’s gas prices would look like the bargain of the century. A nuclear Iran doesn’t just threaten Tel Aviv. It threatens every tanker, every Gulf ally, every European capital within missile range, and eventually, us. It also hands a nuclear umbrella to Hezbollah, the Houthis, and whatever terror franchise Tehran opens next.
Here’s the irony Vance walked right past. His own pollster’s list includes “put America first.” Keeping a nuke away from a regime that has spent 47 years calling us the Great Satan is about as America First as policy gets. You can’t put America first while letting its sworn enemy build the bomb.
Leadership sometimes means taking a beating for doing the right thing. History has a long list of men who did, and they are among our most celebrated figures, though in their day, they took an electoral beating for their positions.
Lincoln’s Republicans got hammered in the 1862 midterms. He didn’t sue for peace with Richmond. Truman left office with approval numbers that would make a used car salesman wince, largely over Korea, and history judged him far more kindly than the voters of 1952 did. Reagan put Pershing missiles in Europe in 1983 while the nuclear-freeze crowd filled the streets, and that resolve helped bring the Soviet Union to the table. George W. Bush lost both chambers over Iraq in 2006, and his answer was the surge, not a retreat.
I’ve spoken often about Churchill, and he’s on this list, too; he won the war and got tossed out of office in 1945 before the ink dried on the surrender. Nobody today argues he should have cut a deal with Hitler to save his majority.
Polls measure how people feel this week. Wars get decided over years. A party that sets national security by the latest crosstabs doesn’t have a national security policy. It has a focus group.
Now look at what Vance actually did. Before the last races in Mississippi and Alaska were even called, the man everyone expects to run in 2028 posted a lengthy manifesto that reads less like a post-mortem and more like a stump speech. The polling behind it comes from someone he calls “one of the smartest people I know,” a pollster he never names. Convenient. A source with no name can’t be checked.
Then there’s the timing. Vance was widely reported to have opposed the war before it launched on Feb. 28. In public, he backed it, and he served as a key negotiator with Tehran as the fighting dragged on. So which Vance do we believe — the one who sat at the table for eight months, or the one who found his voice the morning after the votes came in? If he believed the war would cost us Congress, the time to say so was when saying it might have changed something. Saying it now doesn’t take courage. It’s positioning.
Then comes the line that tells you where this is going. Vance wants to “change our relationship to Israel.” Change it how? He doesn’t say, and the vagueness is the point. It lets the corner of the right that has decided the Jewish state is the root of all evil hear exactly what it wants to hear. And that’s just the thing in practical terms, completely ignoring the moral terms. One of the things that has disturbed me about the Left’s Jew hatred is the immorality of it. Is it any less of a morality problem when uttered by an assumed Republican candidate?
Never mind that Israel has largely sat out the strikes on Iran since April. Never mind that Israel stands as the West’s forward operating base in a neighborhood full of people who want both of us dead. Abandoning your one reliable ally in the region to win back a few swing voters doesn’t make the Islamists like us. It tells them we fold under pressure, and trust me on this: They’ll remember it.
Then there’s Vance’s line about “losing the Senate for the next 6 years.” The senators elected Tuesday serve six-year terms, sure, but the majority goes back on the ballot in 2028, the same year Vance hopes to head the ticket. Conceding the Senate through 2032 is a strange pitch from a man who wants to lead the party back. Unless the real pitch is “I told you so,” and the target is the president.
Vance asked for an honest conversation. Here’s mine.
The war hurt us at the polls. Pretending otherwise is foolish, and Republicans need a far better answer on gas prices and the cost of living than “small price to pay.” But the fix is to win the war and deal with the pain at the pump, not to hand Tehran the finish line because the voters got cranky in November. That’s why it transcends politics. And a man who wants to be commander in chief ought to know that before he hits “post.”
Elections come every two years. A nuclear Iran would be with us forever. And really, that’s the message I think President Trump didn’t get across. You can argue about how he could have and should have done better with the messaging. But not getting the level of importance of throttling Iran’s radical nuclear ambitions across is the reason Tuesday was so painful. The war itself is not as painful as one nuke in the hands of the Iranian regime would be. It’s not any less so when someone like Vance caves on Iran.
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