The day after Democrats’ sweeping midterm victory, Wall Street billionaires debated the scale of political donations and the election’s potential impact on artificial intelligence. Financial markets rose sharply, with investors responding positively to the prospect of political gridlock, lower uncertainty and President Donald Trump’s acceptance of the results.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1,569 points, or 3%. The S&P 500 rose 1.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite added 1.4%.
Virgin Group founder Richard Branson criticized the billions spent by technology entrepreneurs and hedge fund managers to influence elections, calling for campaign finance reform in a Wednesday LinkedIn post. Branson did not make donations that met the reporting threshold in the 2026 election cycle.
His remarks came after Elon Musk, the election’s largest individual donor, saw Republicans lose the Texas Senate and governor races. Musk spent $224 million in Texas, nearly half of his record $474 million in nationwide political giving, according to a CNBC analysis of campaign finance records. On X, Musk joked that his “election-interfering space lasers” had failed and suggested space-based data centers were looking more appealing.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman also called for money to be removed from politics, accusing Musk of spending “outrageous amounts to keep authoritarian clowns in power” while defending his own donations to Democrats. Alex Soros, whose family contributed roughly $103 million to Democratic political efforts, described the result as a generational victory.
Some wealthy investors focused instead on whether the Democratic gains could affect AI development by restricting new data-center construction. Before polls closed, Pershing Square founder Bill Ackman warned that slowing AI development could jeopardize America’s technological advantage, saying, “Practically speaking, we can’t slow down.”
Investor Chamath Palihapitiya warned during an election-night livestream of the “All-In” podcast that the AI trade could suffer if the results held. “The only way to sink the AI trade is to sink the data centers,” he said.
Texas became an early test of those concerns. Democratic governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, who has proposed pausing new data-center construction until stronger safeguards are established, defeated three-term Republican incumbent Greg Abbott. During the same livestream, Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said the Democratic wave could prevent at least 10 to 15 gigawatts of expected AI data-center capacity from coming online in 2027. Wall Street analyst Dan Ives estimated that 10% of planned U.S. data centers would no longer proceed.
AMD CEO Lisa Su acknowledged growing resistance to AI expansion and urged technology companies to show local communities the benefits of data centers. “At the end of the day, what we need to do is ensure that everybody wins from AI,” she told CNBC on Wednesday.
The prospect of slower data-center growth also presented a possible upside for investors. Fewer new facilities could raise the value of existing ones and reduce the spending burden on technology companies. Big Tech stocks surged Wednesday, adding more than $750 billion in market value at one point, while smaller, debt-dependent data-center operators fell.
Sources: CNBC Markets.