Why the U.S. elections are sending Nvidia and AI stocks plunging

On Thursday, November 5, at the close of Wall Street, the index tracking U.S. semiconductor makers showed a 12.2% drop. It had not had a worse day since 2020, according to the Associated Press (AP), cited by Euronews. The Nasdaq, the tech-heavy stock exchange, fell 5.52%, its biggest drop since the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump in April 2025, AFP reports. Also according to AP, S&P 500 companies lost $2.9 trillion in market value in a single session, a record.

The stars of artificial intelligence are on the front line. NVIDIA lost 8.91%, or about $400 billion. AMD fell 17.39%, Micron 17.17% and Broadcom 10.15%. Europe followed: France's Soitec dropped 16.73%, STMicroelectronics 9.33% and the Netherlands' ASML 6.55%. On Friday morning, the wave reached Asia: Japan's Nikkei ended down 5.96%, Samsung lost nearly 10% and SK hynix more than 11%, according to AFP.

Data centers in voters' crosshairs

Why now? On Tuesday, November 3, Democrats took control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the U.S. midterm elections. Several newly elected members had campaigned to slow the construction of data centers, the computing factories that run AI. The same day, residents of dozens of towns voted for restrictions or bans, AFP reports. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had proposed a federal moratorium earlier this year, according to AP.

On Wednesday, Meta president Dina Powell McCormick had warned at a Wall Street Journal conference that building data centers would become harder, Yahoo Finance reports. On Thursday, OpenAI tried to defuse the backlash. The company offered to give up the nondisclosure agreements signed with towns and to pay in full for the electricity and infrastructure needed by its sites.

The vote does not explain everything. Rising borrowing rates weigh on these giant projects, and doubt is growing about the return on the hundreds of billions invested. That doubt was already fueled by the Apollo fund's analysis of U.S. companies. Charu Chanana of Saxo Markets, cited by AFP, also points out that many portfolios are making the same bet on AI, which can trigger cascading sell-offs. Donald Trump, for his part, blamed the Democrats on his Truth Social network.

Anthropic's IPO could be delayed

The first possible casualty: Anthropic, the company that develops the Claude AI. Its IPO is widely expected by the end of November, at a valuation of $1.5 to $2 trillion, according to Yahoo Finance. According to the Wall Street Journal, cited by the site PYMNTS, three major investors ready to take part consider it unlikely to reach the expected $1.5 trillion after Thursday's session. One of them speaks of $1 trillion instead.

According to Reuters, potential buyers doubt that the investor roadshow can start next week, as planned. Anthropic's executives are due to meet in the coming days, the WSJ says. The company did not respond to PYMNTS. This uncertain timeline adds to the questions already raised by the limited voting rights promised to its future shareholders.

What to watch

For a European company that uses these AI services, nothing changes right away. But if the United States slows the construction of data centers, available computing power could grow more slowly than expected, and weigh on prices. Three signals will tell whether Thursday's session was just a panic attack: Anthropic's decision on its timeline, the first bills from the newly elected members on data centers, and the resilience of European markets, which are less exposed to technology, according to AFP.

Update of November 14, 2026

Despite the fall in AI stocks, Anthropic is going ahead with its IPO. According to CNBC, on November 10 the company set a range of $70 to $78 per share for 825 million shares, raising up to $64.35 billion. The top of the range values it at up to $1.405 trillion, counting all shares that could be issued, compared with $965 billion at its May fundraising. It will be listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol ANT. According to CNBC's sources, the price is due to be set on November 18, for first trades on the 19th. Seven partners, AMD, Broadcom, Google, Micron, Microsoft, NVIDIA and TSMC, have also committed to buying $26 billion of non-voting shares at the IPO price.

Investors are following. According to a source cited on November 13 by Reuters, buy orders already represented six times the number of shares offered on Thursday, November 12. The investor roadshow began on November 10, in New York, Boston and San Francisco. Several investors interviewed by Reuters nonetheless doubt that Anthropic will keep its lead over Google and its other competitors beyond coding. They also doubt that the company can maintain high prices if its competitors offer comparable models. Some remain cautious about a high valuation in the middle of a correction in the AI sector, and one of them says the company did not answer some questions in detail.