Wall Street toasted the Democratic sweep at first. On Nov. 4, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 3% as investors digested two years of divided government, with Amazon, Microsoft and Apple among the biggest gainers.
That mood flipped fast. By Nov. 5, the Nasdaq had entered a correction, with traders fretting that a Democratic Congress could slow data center projects that have powered the AI rally. But for some of the country’s biggest companies, a rough day on the market is not the main concern right now. Subpoenas are.
Grok, Maduro and Musk’s widening federal footprint
The House is laying the groundwork to examine President Donald Trump’s use of Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot, in planning the military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, The Washington Post reported.
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It goes back to December 2025, when Trump met privately with Musk. The president spent hours putting questions to Grok about his presidency and his legacy, and at one point asked how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured Maduro, according to TechCrunch. The operation came the following month. When people celebrated in the streets, one official said Trump came away thinking Grok was ingenious.
This was not Grok’s first brush with Washington, either. Back in July 2025, xAI launched a product called Grok for Government, built for federal, state and local agencies, and was one of several AI companies to pick up a Department of Defense contract worth up to $200 million each.
That business now sits inside a much larger company. SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock deal in early February 2026, folding Grok and the X platform under the same roof as Musk’s rockets and satellites.
The AI unit is also fighting an NAACP lawsuit alleging it ran gas turbines without an air permit in Southaven, Mississippi, and a federal judge refused to dismiss the case on Oct. 30, as reported by TheStreet.
Apple’s App Store and the ballroom donors
Apple is drawing scrutiny for hosting tracking apps used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The report did not name the specific apps lawmakers have in mind, and Apple did not immediately respond to the paper’s request for comment.
A second front opened before the new Congress has even been seated. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who is set to chair the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, called on Apple and other donors to Trump’s White House ballroom project to turn over records or face possible subpoenas in January, Reuters reported.
The pressure lands while Apple shares sit near record territory. The stock climbed more than 6% during the Nov. 4 session, one of the strongest moves in the Dow that day. That rally gives the company more to protect if a drawn-out fight in Washington starts weighing on sentiment, Reuters reported.
Blumenthal’s push targets the ballroom donors as a group rather than Apple alone. Still, Apple stands out because it now appears on two separate lists, one tied to immigration enforcement and another tied to the president’s building project.
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Meta’s data center secrecy faces a reckoning
Lawmakers are also eyeing Meta over its demands that local governments sign nondisclosure agreements related to data center development. That angle is likely to resonate in towns where residents learned about massive projects only after key decisions had been made.
The issue already has a paper trail.
A Senate investigation led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Chris Van Hollen and Blumenthal found that Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft routinely sought NDAs during data center development, and argued the deals restricted public scrutiny of tax dollars and utility rates, according to Time. Microsoft told investigators it would stop seeking them with local governments, while Google and Meta declined to commit to ending the practice.
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Meta has more riding on the question than most. The company confirmed on July 13 that its Hyperion data center project in Richland Parish, Louisiana, had crossed $50 billion, up from a $10 billion estimate when it was announced in December 2024, as reported by TheStreet. Louisiana had already approved a 20-year sales tax exemption for eligible data centers in late 2024.
Energy advocates have argued that Meta’s project will push up utility bills for the average customer. Meta disputes that consumers bear those costs directly, and an Entergy press release says they do not.
Meta, Apple and other big tech brace for a January rush
Lawyers expect corporations, rather than federal agencies, to carry much of the load.
Jamie Bair of Crowell & Moring said investigators often get no answers from the administration, while companies tend to receive more detailed letters and are more apt to respond, revealing their dealings with U.S. officials along the way, The Washington Post reported. A memo from the Groundwork Collaborative, a think tank, flagged large tech companies as “high-value” targets.
Investors are already pricing in part of that risk. SpaceX and Tesla shares each fell roughly 5% in premarket trading on Nov. 4 after Musk’s record election spending came up short. Tech selling deepened the next day, with the Nasdaq dropping more than 5% as Wall Street weighed the “headline” risks around AI.
Startups are preparing as well. Venture capitalists have advised Silicon Valley companies to close funding rounds before the end of the year in case money dries up if executives are called into hearings or Pentagon spending is curtailed. For companies that spent two years courting the White House, January now looks less like the start of a new session and more like a deadline.
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