Tech stocks plunged across the board on Thursday. According to The Young Turks, the fall is a result of AI companies panicking over new regulations – and that the “robbery” has finally stopped.
There was a total bloodbath on the stock exchange on Thursday, and the main reason, according to The Young Turks, is that the AI companies are in a panic. But behind the big story lies a deeper story about one company in particular trouble – a company that, according to the presenters, perhaps deserves to go under.
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A house of cards that falls
“When you have an entire economy based on the success of just a handful of tech companies, at some point it will collapse. It looks like we’re at the beginning of that now,” says Anna Kasparian.
The market had already been nervous before the huge sums the tech companies have spent on AI infrastructure. The earnings reports for companies such as Google and Amazon have been weak, and the companies are over-leveraged.
“It doesn’t make sense when you look at the income they bring in. The foundation was simply not in place,” she says.
The Republican election carnage
On Tuesday night, the Republican Party experienced a political bloodbath. Many of the candidates who won had campaigned on platforms that were not only anti-war and anti-Zionist – they also opposed the development of data centers, which are highly unpopular with Americans across the political spectrum. They also advocated for regulation of the AI industry.
Now investors are trying to price in the so-called “blue wave”. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index fell five percent and entered correction territory – usually defined as a drop of ten percent from a recent peak.
The big tech names in red
The list of AI chip and data center stocks shows only red numbers. Among them CoreWeave, a so-called “NeoCloud” company – a specialized cloud provider built to deliver high-performance GPU and AI infrastructure. All the stocks are down over ten percent.
Among the so-called “magnificent seven” – the big tech stocks on which the economy has in practice been built – the picture looks like this:
| Company | Change |
|---|---|
| Tesla | −11.25 % |
| Amazon | -2.32% |
| Nvidia | -8.49% |
Nvidia suffered its biggest one-day loss since March 2025. The stock fell 8.6 percent to $182.94 in the early afternoon – enough to erase all of the year’s gains.
“This is a real panic. It’s 100 percent about chip stocks and a potential slowdown in AI trading,” says Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors.
“They had expected to be able to do whatever they want
The tech companies had expected to be able to do whatever they wanted, without anyone to hold their ears – and during the Trump administration with the Republicans at the helm, that was exactly what they could count on. Now they expect regulations.
“I think their fears may be exaggerated, given how many corporate lackeys there are in the Democratic Party. But they are worried about the new people who were elected,” Kasparian says.
Cenk: “The market had priced in uncontrolled corporatism”
“What the market had priced in was uncontrolled corporatism – that no company would ever be checked by the government. They could do whatever they wanted. They could put a data center on top of your house and send you the bill,” says Cenk Uygur.
“That’s why people were furious with the data centers. All of a sudden, the electricity bill goes up. You say, ‘I didn’t spend that much more luxury.’ They say, ‘No, we’re charging you for what the trillionaires put up.’ We don’t want the trillionaires to pay for it, because they bribed all the officials—so they make you pay.
“When people found out, they said, ‘Oh no, hell!’ Now the market is correcting because the giant companies have to pay their own bills. “We hadn’t counted on that. We thought we could dump all the costs on the American taxpayer.”
Fears that the media will blame the Democrats
Uygur warns about how the media will portray it:
“I guarantee you how the media will angle it going forward. It starts with the Republicans, then it goes to CNBC, then it goes to all the cable news channels. They will say, ‘The Democrats won, and that caused the market to crash.’ What they don’t tell you is that these companies are not going to make as much money because the Democrats stopped them in the middle of a bank robbery.
“The robbers are going to get away with less loot. That’s true. But it’s not the Democrats. It’s you – you stopped the robbery with your votes.
“Over-leveraged by unimaginable amounts”
Uygur also points out that several of the companies were already heavily over-leveraged, with debts up to USD 720-800 billion – not millions, billions.
“They might use this as an excuse: ‘Oh, we’re going to have problems with our data centers. We’re not going to make as much money.’ Probably all these people should have been in jail.
He is not merciful in his judgment:
“I’m so tired of it. A parasitic force in American society, sucking up our resources – and not even caring what the American people want or think. They push these projects through communities despite protests. These people are assholes, and I hope their companies go under.
The 2008 warning
“When you see the market fall, I want you to remember this: The crash for these companies was inevitable, just like the subprime housing market in 2008. Once you make an insane number of bets you can’t cover, it’s only a matter of time before it hits.
“So all you did was stop the robbery faster – and get to the right result as quickly as possible. The markets are correcting and realizing that this is not sustainable. Don’t let them blame you for stopping the robbery.
– Rubbing it in our faces
“They’ve rubbed it in our faces: ‘We have all the power, we’ve bought all the politicians. Trump is our little slipper, and he lets us do whatever we want. And the whole reason we’re doing this is because we want to replace you. So go to hell.’ They’ve rubbed it in our faces.
One example he points to is when Sam Altman talked about the authorities being the “insurer of last resort” – i.e. that taxpayers should pay if the companies go bankrupt.
“Prison. Oh no, hell. The left is already against it. The right is also against it – a bailout for these tech companies. One hundred percent.
“If they think they find comfort on the right, they are wrong. They find comfort in Republican politicians, but the right has just told you that they are not ‘our boys’. They threw them out.
Sam Altman and the “hoarding of pieces”
Uygur also highlights a story from the week:
“Sam Altman complained about how unfair it is that ordinary Americans hoard chips he could use in their computers. It was unbelievable. Prison.
“These people are parasites. They sit and become irritable because we have chips he wants in our personal computers. As if we are not even worthy of having a personal computer.
– Larry Ellison in trouble
And now for the good news, according to the hosts: The company that is said to be in the biggest trouble is Oracle – founded by Larry Ellison, the man who, according to Uygur, “will monitor us and make sure we behave nicely.”
“I’m so ready for prison. I love prison for these people,” says Kasparian.
Uygur moderates somewhat:
“We don’t know that they’ve broken any laws. That’s the problem – what’s legal. The Supreme Court legalized bribery. Elon Musk is allowed to give Republicans $440 million to work just for him. That’s the scandal.
Investors: “Euphoria and hype”
David Banshin, Chief Investment Officer at Banshin Group, predicts that the sell-off will continue:
“What happens on Thursday is what happens when euphoria and hype become the reason stocks go up, rather than fundamentals. Rather than trying to time the end of this tech blowout, we prefer to avoid it altogether and focus on more defensive parts of the market, such as consumer goods and energy stocks.
Uygur is not impressed:
“It’s his nice way of saying that we look forward to taking advantage of the inflation that has hit energy and other things Americans desperately need. Instead of taking the money out of the market, let’s pour it into the oil companies – because because of the war, they’re making money hand over fist.
“The money has to be put somewhere”
“The rich have found every way to rob you and enrich themselves. They have moved all the money to the top. And part of the reason why the market hasn’t already crashed is that they simply don’t know where to put the money.
“So they say, ‘We have to put the money somewhere. Let’s stuff it in the energy and consumer market, because we’re driving up inflation.’ That’s why they’re making acquisitions in a panic – they’re buying back their own shares, which is artificially driving up the price. Then management and shareholders cash out, and the money is already in their mansions and yachts.
“And when they crash, they’ve already secured billions. Then they come to you and ask to be the ‘insurer of last resort’. By the way, they’ve already pushed many of the super-risky loans into their pension funds. Congratulations – when they collapse, the pension funds collapse first.
“Find the crime, see who did it”
“The way it’s supposed to work, as Ro Khanna said, is that you don’t pick a person and look for a crime. You find a crime and see who did it. If it turns out that they did something illegal, and that they knew things would collapse – and therefore made acquisitions to take the money out themselves, while those who hold the shares are left behind – well, that’s a big problem.
“Unfortunately, bribery is not illegal. Therefore, we must get the money out of politics and make it illegal.
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