Tech Massacre: Nvidia, Tesla, and SpaceX Take Ruthless Blows

Tech stocks are getting a huge bang on Wall Street this afternoon. Investors fear that the Democratic gains in the US elections will slow down the construction of AI data centers. And it is precisely the companies that earn the most from this building fury that go the deepest way.

In the first half hour after the opening at 3:30 pm our time evaporated around 1.3 trillion dollars of market value in US tech stocks. That's over $40 billion per minute.

The Nasdaq 100, the index with the hundred largest non-financial companies on the Nasdaq stock exchange, is at a major loss of more than 4 percent. Dozens of companies are handing in 10 percent or more.

Memory and storage companies like SanDisk and Western Digital are suffering the most. Arm and Qualcomm are also losing 10 percent, after delivering disappointing expectations for the coming months last night.

But even the biggest names have it pretty hard.

Still, the panic doesn't strike everywhere. Most companies in the broad S&P 500 rank higher, according to, because investors are shifting their money to more boring and safer sectors.

The sales wave announced itself yesterday. Wall Street had another excellent day back then: the Dow Jones boomed more than 3 percent, the best day since April 2025. But chip stocks did not participate.

Nvidia, the figurehead of the chip industry, lost 3.2 percent and thus about $158 billion in market value. This morning, Asia also went down: the South Korean KOSPI closed 5.3 percent lower and memory maker SK Hynix lost 9.5 percent.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX), a measure of the largest chip companies, is now 35 percent below its June record.

The blow comes to a sector that has been faltering for some time. Investors have been doubtful for months whether the huge expenditure on artificial intelligence (AI) will ever be recouped.

That doubt is reflected in the figures. The turnover of tech giants such as Alphabet, Meta and Amazon is still growing rapidly, but they are now spending more than they receive. That money largely ends up with chip companies, from Nvidia to SK Hynix.

Now there is also a political brake. The Democrats won a majority in both chambers of Congress and won governor positions in Texas, among other places, where the new governor wants to pause the construction of data centers.

According to investment bank Goldman Sachs, about 45 percent of the planned US data center capacity is located in states that are considering stricter rules. Texas alone accounts for a quarter.

Nevertheless, a rural construction stop is still far away. President Donald Trump can veto it, and the Democrats lack the two-thirds majority to break that. Wealth manager Bob Edwards of Edwards Asset Management therefore remains calm.

“We are not worried about what the blue wave means for the development of AI, because the president still has his vices and data centers generate jobs and tax revenues,” he says. By the blue wave, he means the Democratic victory, after the party color.