A photograph of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest figures—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—standing together at Donald Trump’s inauguration once symbolized a powerful alliance between the ultra-rich and the political establishment. The picture symbolized at the time the bending of the knee by the 1 richest man in the world to its most powerful, a symbiosis of the ultra-rich. However, following the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections, that image now appears to many as a target list for a newly empowered Democratic Congress. As Democrats secured decisive control of both houses of Congress and made gains in state governorships, the political strategy of backing the MAGA movement has come under intense scrutiny.
Voters expressed clear dissatisfaction with the influence of tech oligarchs on the political process. This public sentiment, combined with broader anger over the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, the construction of massive data centers, and the use of surveillance technology, shifted the political momentum away from Republican candidates. Texas Democratic representative Greg Casar stated that voters rejected Republicans in part because they were perceived as being influenced by AI billionaires, urging Democrats to hold these corporations accountable rather than accepting their financial support.
The legislative agenda now includes potential congressional investigations into major technology firms and proposed moratoriums on the construction of energy-intensive data centers. These facilities, which are essential for AI development, have become a focal point of public and political opposition. Governors in states including Texas, Ohio, and Georgia have already pledged to pursue pauses on the construction of these hyperscale projects. Furthermore, investigators have reportedly begun sending letters to companies like Nvidia and Amazon to preserve records for future inquiries.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a prominent ally of the Trump administration, faces significant political fallout. After donating $450 million to Republican causes, including a failed campaign for Texas politician Ken Paxton, Musk saw his political investments yield little success. In the wake of the election, Musk deleted a social media post urging voters to "Vote red," and later speculated about moving data centers to space. Democrats are now considering investigations into the merger of SpaceX and xAI, which has a $200m contract with the US military.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg may feel deja vu when he finds himself sitting across the table from an inquisition, as he repeatedly did at the end of the 2010s. The Meta CEO made a nakedly political pivot under Trump 2.0 with his shift to the right. He appeared at Mar-a-Lago to show off Meta’s camera-equipped glasses to Trump. Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appears to be shifting his public stance, emphasizing the need for safety regulations and suggesting that society should not cede control of the future to superintelligence, a move interpreted as a pivot toward human-first regulation.
Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts indicated the severity of the coming oversight, stating on social media that new forests would need to be planted to accommodate the volume of subpoenas being prepared for the industry. As Senator Jon Ossoff noted in his victory speech, the prevailing sentiment in the new Congress is a commitment to bring big tech to heel.
In the past year, the major AI firms have been competing in a fierce race to buy or build massive, noisy, resource-intensive facilities full of semiconductor chips that will supply their growing needs for computing power. Americans hate them. Democrats stand firmly in the way of that arms race. Democrats took governors’ mansions by promising to institute moratoriums on hyperscale datacenter construction.
By Wednesday morning, the SpaceX CEO wanted off the planet. “Datacenters in space are looking pretty good right now,” he wrote.
