The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged roughly 1,200 points on Thursday, giving back most of the gains from the previous day, when midterm election results helped drive the index to its strongest session in more than a year.
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Artificial intelligence companies bore the brunt of the selloff as investors weighed the potential impact of newly empowered Democrats, many of whom campaigned against the expansion of AI data centers.
Nvidia, the chipmaker whose processors power many AI products, fell 7% on Thursday. Shares of rival Advanced Micro Devices dropped 12%, while SanDisk, another major AI hardware company, plunged more than 15%.
The decline also spread to other leading technology companies involved in the AI buildout.
Microsoft, which owns a significant stake in OpenAI, saw its shares fall more than 2%. Amazon, which has committed hundreds of billions of dollars to expanding its AI infrastructure, also declined by more than 2%.
Thursday’s losses erased much of the market’s dramatic advance in the prior session.
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The Dow surged 1,570 points, or 3%, on Wednesday—its best single-day performance since April 9, 2025, when President Donald Trump announced the suspension of a sweeping package of reciprocal tariffs.
Despite Wednesday’s rally, Yorkville analyst Dan Ives warned ABC News that the midterm results could create challenges for the technology industry.
"The Democratic blue tidal wave across the Senate and House was a seismic shift that will have a negative impact on the pace of the AI Revolution buildout in the US over the next few years," Ives told ABC News in a statement.
Tuesday’s midterm elections produced statewide victories for Democratic Senate and gubernatorial candidates in Republican strongholds including Ohio and Texas, both of which host numerous AI data centers.
Democrats also performed strongly in House races, appearing to move closer to securing a comfortable majority in the lower chamber.
In the wake of the election, OpenAI on Thursday introduced new data center policies focused on what it described as "responsible AI infrastructure."
The ChatGPT creator said it would make several new commitments, including covering all electricity and infrastructure costs associated with its facilities. OpenAI also said it would develop a "water plan" for every site to help "protect local resources" and would "create opportunities for local workers and businesses," according to a company blog post.