Musk loses over 100 billion dollars as tech stocks slide after Democratic midterm wins

Democrats take Congress and the tech sector reacts

Democrats won both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the 3 November midterm elections, which shifts the balance of power in Washington. Their majorities take effect on 3 January, and from then on they will control the committees that can compel company heads to testify or hand over internal documents. President Donald Trump keeps his veto until January 2029, so Democrats must still win over a divided party before they can pass laws.

Data centres become a voting issue

An NBC poll cited by RTS found that the question of data centres was decisive for a quarter of voters. More than two-thirds of Americans now oppose them, a sharp reversal from a year earlier. Maya Kandel, a historian and researcher at Sorbonne Nouvelle, said the public's main concerns are energy costs and the environment, including the water supply these centres draw on.

“A year ago, Americans were divided on building data centers. Today, a majority of more than two-thirds opposes them.”

In Indiana, where Microsoft and Amazon run several projects, the Trump-aligned candidate lost. In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa became governor after campaigning against the influence of large technology companies, and she said she wants the state to drop its accommodating stance toward data centres. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed won a Senate seat despite more than five million dollars spent against him by America PAC, a committee funded by Elon Musk.

Tech stocks fall sharply after the vote

On Wednesday, 4 November, Musk's fortune had already lost 33.5 billion dollars as Tesla and SpaceX shares fell. On Thursday, 5 November, investors sold technology shares heavily. By 16:50 GMT the Nasdaq was down 4.31%, the S&P 500 had dropped 3.15% and the Dow Jones had lost 2.31%. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index put Musk's loss on that day at nearly 80 billion dollars, and more than 100 billion since the elections, which leaves his fortune at 785 billion dollars. He remains the richest person in the world, ahead of Jeff Bezos with 370 billion dollars. The 500 people on the list lost a combined 185 billion dollars on Thursday.

Dow Jones Market Data, reported by MarketWatch, calculated that Tesla lost 216 billion dollars and SpaceX about 240 billion dollars over the two trading days. On Thursday alone, Tesla shares fell about 11% and SpaceX shares about 9%.

Tesla216

SpaceX240

Tesla

216 billion dollars

SpaceX

240 billion dollars

Data from the article text

European markets fell less. Frankfurt and London each lost 0.43% on Thursday, Milan dropped 1.03%, and Paris gained 0.34%, since technology carries less weight in those indexes.

Musk's political bet and the analysts' view

Musk, who lives in Texas, put 224 million dollars into the Texas campaign, mainly to back Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, according to the New York Times. Paxton was not elected. Tesla and SpaceX are both headquartered in Texas, and Focus reports that a possible merger of the two companies would face bigger political and regulatory obstacles. Garrett Nelson, an analyst at the research firm CFRA, sees the Democratic win as an added burden on the technology groups' heavy AI investments, because Democratic politicians could make building new data centres harder. Neil Wilson of Saxo Markets described the sell-off as a total collapse of tech stocks that reached the level of capitulation.

Tech bosses face Congress scrutiny

Democrats are already pressing the sector. Greg Casar, leader of the left wing of House Democrats, called for AI company bosses to be summoned to testify under oath. Senator Ed Markey told the executives that they would need to plant new forests to produce all the subpoenas Congress will print. Elon Musk, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Jensen Huang of Nvidia could be among those called. Several of these leaders had attended Trump's inauguration in January 2025 and signed a voluntary AI code of conduct in late September, which Trump called almost a constitution. No top tech executive commented on the vote apart from Musk, who posted twice on X, the first referring to a conspiracy theory.