Texas election reversal: Musk's empire evaporates $380 billion after the market

According to Woofun AI, the Texas midterm election results triggered severe market shocks. Tesla (TSLA.US) shares plummeted 10.77% to $343.69 during Thursday's regular trading session, but rebounded 0.58% to $345.70 in after-hours trading.

The core of this fluctuation stems from the potential impact of changes in the political landscape on infrastructure construction. On Tuesday, the Democratic Party achieved a complete turnaround in Texas: Gina Hinojosa defeated current Republican Governor Greg Abbott with about 52.8% to 45.7% of the vote to become the state's first Democratic governor in more than 30 years; James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton to take the state Senate seat for the Democratic Party; the party also won state-level positions such as lieutenant governor, attorney general, and auditor general. In the election campaign, Hinojosa promised to suspend the approval and connection of new data centers (except for projects under construction) until the state legislature introduced relevant regulations; previously, then-Governor Abbott had requested the State Environmental Quality Commission to suspend all data center license approvals in September. This change changed the nature of the freeze from “waiting for an audit” to “waiting for legislation.” Goldman Sachs (GS.US) analysts pointed out that the victory of the Democratic Party at the state and local levels may cause data center construction to stall in the short term, causing about 45% of planned capacity expansion projects in the US to face short-term suspensions, of which Texas alone accounts for about 25%.

Notably, according to media statistics, Musk's political investment in the current midterm elections reached at least 474 million US dollars, of which Texas alone spent 224 million US dollars (supporting Republican candidates and increasing voter turnout through channels such as the American PAC), and there is a stark contrast between his political bets and the election results. According to data compiled by Woofun AI, SpaceX (SPCX.US) stock price fell 9.05% on Thursday. The media estimated that Musk's company lost more than 380 billion US dollars in market value this week, and its personal net assets shrunk by about 91.2 billion US dollars in a single day (Forbes caliber, 10.50% decrease) to 785 billion US dollars; the Bloomberg Billionaires Index caliber was 785 billion US dollars.

Judging from trading data, Tesla's trading volume surged to 79.68 million shares on Thursday, about 2.1 times the recent average daily turnover (about 37 million shares), indicating a sharp outflow of capital. Faced with expectations of tighter regulations, Musk responded on the X platform saying “the current space data center looks quite attractive,” suggesting that the focus of the business may shift to the space sector. Currently, Tesla's market value is $1.36 trillion, the 52-week price range is $297.38 to $498.82, and the RSI value is 35.81. The cumulative decline over the past 12 months is about 25.62%. This is a centralized reassessment of the market's regulatory risk pricing for tech giants following increased political polarization.