Big tech got a bruising reality check after this week’s midterm elections. American voters overwhelmingly voted for candidates promising to hold Silicon Valley leaders accountable — while approving dozens of ballot measures opposing the construction of data centers.
It was a striking and bipartisan message that was followed by mass panic on Wall Street. On Thursday, a massive sell off wiped out a record $2.3 trillion in market value, highlighting major volatility and uncertainty.
Caught up in the maelstrom is Claude maker Anthropic, which officially filed to go public at a rumored valuation of up to $2 trillion dollars just a week before the elections.
As Bloomberg reports, those prospects are in free fall as the chaos takes hold. Some investors are now weighing bids that would value Anthropic as low as $1.1 trillion. While that’s still a huge valuation for a company that lost over $80 billion in the first half of 2026 alone, it’s a massive drop compared to the previously unbridled enthusiasm surrounding the firm’s IPO.
The uncertainty is palpable as investors weigh the possibility of regulatory roadblocks and potentially even political retribution. The appetite in Congress for greater scrutiny over the highly controversial and unpopular expansion of AI data centers could threaten or slow down the construction projects en masse.
Anthropic will now have to weigh its options: either aim for a massive valuation to send a clear signal to the market and risk a bloodbath in the first week of trading, or open with a more conservative target and hope for growth from there.
Pushing back its plans could risk even more uncertainty.
“The cost both physically and reputationally of delaying the IPO that might hurt the valuation more in the longer term,” Morningstar chief equity strategist Michael Field told Bloomberg, “whereas if markets hold up at the level that they are, they’ll just get it done at a slightly lower valuation, suck it up and move on.”
Whether a new Congress with a Democratic majority in both houses will result in more regulatory oversight remains to be seen. For one, many lawmakers, including prospective House speaker Hakeem Jeffries, are bankrolled by Silicon Valley executives.
Nonetheless, as Reuters reports, Democrats are already gearing up to “unleash a flood of new legislation” targeting AI and data center developments once they take over control in January — a potentially massive political swing after two years of near-complete complacency.
Of course, president Donald Trump will still have the power to veto these plans until 2028, which could give AI companies some cover. However, if this week’s midterm election results are any indication, the floodgates could open once he ends his second term.
More on the IPO: Anthropic Appears to Be the First Company to Go Public by Warning That It May Destroy Humankind
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