After the US midterm elections, AI companies will probably have to prepare for more political headwinds. As a result, the values of chip manufacturers are now losing significantly in value on the stock market - in the USA, but also in Germany.
Concerns about greater regulation in the AI industry have led to a sell-off in technology stocks on the US stock market. Two days after the Democrats' election successes in the midterms, stocks in particular from the chip industry, which until recently had been considered the biggest beneficiaries of the rise of AI, collapsed.
The Nasdaq 100 fell 6.36 percent to 26,629.81 points and fell back to April levels. This means that $2.3 trillion in market value disappeared; However, the tech index had also risen rapidly since the beginning of 2023 and had therefore benefited greatly from the hope of good business with artificial intelligence. The stock market barometer only reached a record high in October. It has increased by 5.5 percent since the beginning of the year.
The market-wide S&P 500 fell by 4.36 percent to 7,353.73 points on Thursday. It is the biggest daily loss since April 2025. The leading index Dow Jones Industrial fell by 3.44 percent to 51,523.06 points. The increase here has been 7.2 percent since the beginning of the year.
Shares in the chip company Nvidia lost 9.3 percent. Large storage stocks such as Seagate, Western Digital and Sandisk were hit even harder, falling by up to 22 percent. Their products are essential for data centers.
In the US congressional elections, the Democrats won the majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Tech companies now have to prepare for more headwinds with their huge data centers for AI. Critics of AI data centers point, among other things, to their high electricity requirements, which could also drive up energy prices for the population. There are also concerns about noise, air pollution and water shortages, as well as the fear that data centers will create few permanent jobs.
Democrats are seen as more skeptical about the prospects of artificial intelligence than Republicans, who are more likely to support deregulation. In Texas, Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa has already called for an immediate moratorium on data center construction from Democrats.
Micron's shares lost 17.5 percent. The semiconductor company has put its plans for a memory chip factory in Taiwan on hold for the time being due to an impending protracted wage dispute, the Bloomberg news agency reported, citing insiders. This raises questions about the future of a key production site for critical AI components.
The fear of stricter regulation overall also frightened investors in shares from the tech billionaire Elon Musk's corporate empire. The shares of the electric car manufacturer Tesla fell by almost eleven percent and those of the space and AI company SpaceX by nine percent.
In Germany, the shares of the chip company Infineon joined the turbulent situation by losing more than ten percent. Other index values from the Dax, Siemens Energy and Hochtief, were hit very clearly in which previously high AI expectations were priced in. The German leading index had meanwhile set a record, but closed 0.43 percent lower at 26,325.01 points, the MDax lost 0.92 percent to 30,891.56 points.
