SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has become a major political donor, contributing more than $445 million in the 2026 election cycle. Photo: MarketWatch photo illustration/Getty Images, iStockphoto
Investors worry a divided Washington could derail ‘Elon, Inc.’
Shares of Tesla and Space X were down by 11% and 8%, respectively, in recent action on Thursday, underscoring both broader concerns in the technology sector and worries about their business opportunities going forward in the aftermath of the 2026 U.S. midterm elections.
Across the past two trading days, Tesla has erased $221 billion in market capitalization and SpaceX has lost $229 billion in value, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
CEO Elon Musk is feeling the pain alongside the average investor. According to Forbes, Musk’s net worth now stands at about $788.2 billion, down 9.3% on Thursday.
Garrett Nelson, an analyst at CFRA, told MarketWatch that the Democrats’ takeover of the U.S. House and Senate in the midterm elections is “compounding” fears around the massive artificial-intelligence spending plans of Tesla and other large technology companies.
Nelson added that concerns are particularly pronounced for companies doing business in states like Texas, where Democrats had major victories, and where SpaceX and Tesla are headquartered. Tesla operates a supercomputing cluster in Texas, though SpaceX’s data centers are based in Mississippi and Tennessee.
Several newly elected Democrats, including Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, have expressed opposition to new data centers. A few dozen ballot measures related to data centers were put before voters this week, according to Redbud Consulting. But so far, data-center advocates have won just a single measure, the firm said.
Political opposition could incentivize SpaceX to move more quickly to put data centers in orbit, a goal key to the company’s future and valuation, according to KeyBanc analyst Mike Leshock. Musk on Wednesday wrote that space-based data centers were “looking pretty appealing right now.”
The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 NDX was off 5.7% in recent action on Thursday, while the PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 10.1%, on pace for its biggest decline in more than six years, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
