SpaceX shares fell Wednesday morning even as the rest of the market surged, as investors weighed what Elon Musk’s record midterm spending – and its failure to deliver his chosen candidates – means for a company with deep roots in Texas.
The stock opened down about 5.7% and traded at $136.31, off 3.5%, as of 9:40 a.m. Eastern, according to CNBC’s real-time quote, after closing Tuesday at $141.31. The drop came as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied more than 1,200 points, leaving SpaceX moving in the opposite direction from the broader market. Tesla shares also fell.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off (SpaceX / CC0).
The political background: Musk spent at least $474 million on the 2026 midterms, nearly half of it in Texas, where Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton and Governor Greg Abbott both lost as Democrats swept to control of Congress. Read our full report on the results and the market rally here.
For investors, the focus is Texas. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat, campaigned on an immediate moratorium on data center development, and 27% of America’s planned data center capacity sits in the state, according to Wells Fargo. Tesla, SpaceX and other Musk ventures have major Texas operations that flourished under Abbott’s business-friendly administration. CNBC reported that investors are now weighing whether state-level restrictions could delay projects in major buildout markets, and AI and data center stocks broadly fell even as the wider market rose.
The pullback also lands on a day of genuinely positive SpaceX news: hours before the opening bell, the company announced a multiyear deal with Qualcomm to build the ground network for Starlink Mobile, with tens of thousands of cell sites planned from 2027.
What it means: nothing about SpaceX’s business changed overnight – what changed is the political weather around it. Wednesday’s split screen, with the market up sharply and SpaceX down, is investors pricing a new question: how much of the Musk premium was built on political access that just became more expensive.
JBizNews Desk | New York
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