AI Stock Selloff Wipes $3 Trillion as Voters Turn on Data Centers

Thursday's AI stock selloff erased more than $3 trillion from the Nasdaq in a single session, and the trigger was not an earnings miss or a chip ban. It was a ballot box. Two days after the midterms, investors started pricing in a future where the United States builds fewer AI data centers, and the companies that sell the picks and shovels for that buildout took the hardest hits.

Here is the day in figures, then what they say about where the AI trade goes from here.

Thursday's rout, figure by figure

• 5.5%: the Nasdaq Composite's drop on November 5, according to CoinDesk.
• $3 trillion plus: the market value the Nasdaq shed during the session, per Fortune, citing Bloomberg data. That made it the index's worst day since the tariff shock of April 2025.
• 1,000 points plus: the fall in the Philadelphia Semiconductor index, which was on course for its worst single day since March 2020.
• 14%: the approximate intraday drop in both Micron and AMD, as reported by Fortune.
• 8%: Nvidia's decline.
• 18%: CoreWeave's projected two day slide, including a 9% fall on Thursday.
• 3.4%, 2.8% and 1.6%: the much smaller losses at Meta, Microsoft and Google.
• 37 of 38: local data center ballot contests with complete counts where voters sided against development, as tracked by Redbud Consulting.

Chipmakers fell hardest, and that is the tell

Look at the spread between the bottom and the top of that list. The companies that write the checks for AI infrastructure (Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet) lost a few percent. The companies that cash those checks lost three to five times as much.

That pattern says investors were not betting against AI itself. They were betting that the spending wave could crest sooner than expected. Memory makers like Micron and GPU suppliers like AMD and Nvidia depend on hyperscalers ordering hardware for new buildings. If fewer buildings get permits, fewer orders follow. Rental players such as CoreWeave, which lease GPU capacity, sit even closer to that risk. Memory costs were already a sore spot this season, as Apple's latest quarter showed.

14 Ohio towns and one Texas governor's race

The local results explain why the market reacted so sharply. In a Fortune report on the vote, voters in at least 14 Ohio municipalities approved bans or other limits on data centers. In Piqua, Ohio, a city of about 20,000, residents recalled the mayor and two commissioners who had backed a planned $1 billion Meta facility of up to 1.4 gigawatts.

Texas mattered even more. The state hosts more than 400 data center facilities, and Democrat Gina Hinojosa unseated Gov. Greg Abbott after campaigning on a moratorium until lawmakers add protections for residents. Fortune reports she has also called for ending data center tax breaks and for rules that shield household power bills and local water supplies.

At the federal level, Democrats retook both the House and the Senate, a shift we covered from the crypto side in our look at what the new Congress means for the Clarity Act.

$1 trillion still on the table in 2027

The big number that did not change much is the spending forecast. Analyst Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives wrote on Thursday that he expects Big Tech capital spending growth to peak next year instead of in 2028 or 2029, yet still sees it topping $1 trillion in 2027, according to Fortune. His low end estimate is that 10% of the 800 to 1,000 AI data centers planned in the U.S. now drop off the roadmap.

Meta President Dina Powell McCormick put the industry mood plainly at a Wall Street Journal conference on Wednesday, saying U.S. data center construction is going to get harder and that every hyperscaler is now asking whether it needs to build abroad. Companies already stretching their balance sheets for AI, like Oracle with its $20 billion raise, will feel that question most.

The selloff spilled into crypto

Risk assets moved together. CoinDesk reported that bitcoin fell 5.3% and ether 7.3% over 24 hours, with more than $1 billion in leveraged positions liquidated, according to CoinGlass. Spot bitcoin funds bled too: Fidelity's FBTC lost about $200 million and BlackRock's IBIT about $105 million on Thursday, per Farside Investors. By Friday morning bitcoin had steadied near $76,150.

The next test came quickly. Friday's October jobs report, where economists polled by FactSet expected about 65,000 new payrolls, gives investors a fresh reason to either keep selling or catch their breath. For more on how tech giants are adjusting, see our tech coverage.