Tech stocks plunge as voters reject AI datacenter expansion

Tech stocks crater on Thursday

The Nasdaq fell more than 1,340 points, or 5.2%, in midday trading, shedding more than three trillion dollars in market cap.It was the biggest daily drop since the Liberation Day tariff announcement in April 2025.

Semiconductor stocks hit hardest

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Sector index, tracking the 30 largest chip companies, was down more than 1,000 points on track for its single biggest day loss since March 2020. Micron and AMD each fell roughly 14%.

Big Tech takes losses across the board

Meta fell 3.4%, Microsoft fell 2.8%, and Nvidia fell 8%. Google, with its search advertising business, was down only 1.6% on Thursday, faring better than rivals.

Voters rejected datacenter expansion

Thursday's selloff followed Wednesday's midterm election results. Voters overwhelmingly approved candidates and ballot measures that sought to curtail the buildout of AI data centers in the United States.

Meta warns of harder datacenter builds

Meta President Dina Powell McCormick said building data centers in the U.S. is going to be harder. Every hyperscaler is now thinking about building outside the United States because they are enormous investments.

“going to be harder”

Capex growth expected to peak sooner

Dan Ives at Yorkville Ives expects tech capex growth to peak next year instead of 2028 or 2029.He estimates ten to twenty percent of planned eight hundred to one thousand AI datacenters in the U.S.