After the midterms, "new U.S. computing capacity is locked down" Musk becomes the "decisive factor in the AI landscape"

After the U.S. midterm elections delivered a landslide victory for the Democrats, newly elected governors in multiple states immediately imposed tough conditions on data centers, announcing a full suspension of new construction permits until new regulations are introduced. This policy shift directly detonated the market, with tech stocks including Nvidia, Tesla, AMD, and Micron suffering the largest single-day market cap wipeout in history after the election, involving an amount approaching US$4 trillion. Chamath Palihapitiya, co-host of the well-known All-In Podcast and Silicon Valley investor, disclosed on the November 8 broadcast that the real "nuclear-grade" variable is hidden in the computing power supply contract between SpaceX and Anthropic both parties hold a "90-day mutual exit clause." Once market computing power supply suddenly tightens due to state-level permit freezes, SpaceX could theoretically terminate the contract and reprice at 2 to 3 times the spot price, at which point the entire AI industry's power landscape would be completely rewritten. Hyperscale cloud providers, sitting on existing computing capacity, remain firmly in the "landlord" position, while Neoclouds and frontier model companies that rely heavily on external leasing face a life-or-death situation. Meanwhile, All-In Podcast co-hosts Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg also warned on the show that if states continue to erect approval barriers, gigawatt-scale data center projects worth over US$50 billion will be forced to relocate to Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, or even the Middle East, and the U.S. will go from being a "global computing power exporter" to an expensive "Token importer," with an undeniable strategic impact on tech competitiveness and employment. Permit Freeze: A Grassroots Backlash Against the "AI Oligarchy" After the election results were announced, newly elected Texas Governor Gina Ino Hosa immediately stated publicly that all new data center permits would be suspended until dedicated legislation is introduced. According to discussion among the All-In Podcast co-hosts on the show, candidates in multiple newly won states hold similar positions. This public sentiment did not emerge from thin air. On the show, Chamath cited a video widely circulated on Platform X a SpaceX team traveled to Cochise County, Arizona, to hold an information session for its 6GW data center project, where two SpaceX employees, Riley and Katie, promised on the spot that the project would lower local electricity bills, consume no water resources, reduce property taxes by 20%, and provide repayment funding for county bonds. However, the reaction from residents in the audience was sustained jeering and confrontation. Chamath pointed out that this sentiment does not stem from rational judgment of facts, but rather from a totemic projection of the "economic divide." What community residents find extremely objectionable is that tech giants enjoy generous tax breaks provided by local governments while driving up local electricity prices and water consumption. David Sacks also said bluntly that the core logic of residents is: "The AI oligarchs get rich off tax incentives, while we pay higher electricity bills for them." David Sacks further pointed out that the political momentum behind the permit freeze is almost rigid: "In the last election, both Democrats and Republicans treated politicians who approved data centers as targets of attack. Anyone with political ambition has no reason to stamp approval on any project in the next four years." His baseline judgment is that projects already under construction with all permits in hand will most likely be completed by 2027, but new projects not yet approved will face enormous uncertainty, and by 2028 the entire project pipeline may have largely closed or shrunk significantly. "Landlords" and "Tenants": The Life-or-Death Divergence in the Computing Power Landscape Chamath clearly divides participants in the current computing power market into two distinct camps and states bluntly that their fates diverge sharply under the new circumstances. Hyperscalers including Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and SpaceX build their own power plants and sit on large amounts of existing computing capacity, making them true "landlords." The tightening of permits for new data centers has limited impact on them and instead brings important strategic opportunities: by redirecting incremental computing power to their own products, they can effectively suppress the growth rate of external competitors. As Chamath put it, Google's recent acquisition of Crusoe's data center is a direct manifestation of this logic "They drove out the tenants and took the entire asset for themselves." By contrast, Neoclouds and frontier model companies (such as Anthropic and OpenAI) rely heavily on externally leased computing power and are truly the "tenant class." Once new supply is locked down by state regulations, spot GPU hourly prices will soar significantly, and these companies will either be forced to accept much higher quotes or gradually fall behind in the fierce model iteration competition due to insufficient computing power. It is worth noting that Anthropic and OpenAI are currently in a high-speed model iteration rhythm of 60 to 90 days per cycle. Once computing power supply tightens, this rhythm will be forcibly slowed, leaving a catch-up window for models under hyperscalers such as Google Gemini. SpaceX's "90-Day Nuclear Button": One Contract Determines the AI Landscape Among all variables, Chamath believes the most decisive is a contract clause little known to the outside world. According to Chamath's disclosure, the computing power supply agreement between SpaceX and Anthropic contains a "mutual 90-day exit clause" either party may terminate the contract with 90 days' notice to the other. This clause may appear to be a standard commercial arrangement during stable market conditions, but against the backdrop of a sudden tightening of computing power supply, it has evolved into a "nuclear bomb" that can be detonated at any time. Chamath's reasoning is as follows: If state permit freezes cause a significant reduction in available market computing power, spot computing power prices will climb sharply. SpaceX would then have ample economic incentive to terminate the existing contract and reprice at spot market rates most likely 2 to 3 times the original contract price. Anthropic would have no choice but to swallow this price or face a life-or-death crisis from computing power supply cutoff. The chain reaction of this move goes far beyond that. Chamath pointed out that it would force all hyperscalers to re-examine their own computing power allocation strategies should they continue leasing to external customers at current prices, or reserve everything for their own models? At the same time, it would force Neoclouds to deploy all their financing reserves to snap up all available computing power at peak prices to avoid being completely squeezed out of the market. "I think all the game theory is condensed into this one deal. If Elon decides to tear up this contract, the consequence will be a complete reshuffling of the entire AI industry landscape," Chamath summarized. Computing Power Going Overseas: The U.S. Faces Strategic Risk of Turning from "Exporter" to "Importer" On the show, both Jason Calacanis and David Sacks warned about the prospect of data centers relocating overseas. The core logic is: data centers do not have to be located within the United States. Ultra-large data centers on the scale of US$50 billion and gigawatt level can absolutely be built in Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore, and even the Middle East after the war ends. Google has already established large data centers in Malaysia. With existing submarine cables, CDN technology, and the Starlink network, cross-border delivery latency and efficiency of computing power are no longer major obstacles. David Sacks explicitly pointed out that if the U.S. does not build these data centers, the U.S. will pay a high price for importing "Tokens." Jason Calacanis added a more direct domestic cost: hundreds of thousands of data center construction jobs paying US$300,000 to US$400,000 annually will be lost, and tax revenue that would have gone to U.S. local governments will flow to places like Malaysia. "These governors are going to learn a very harsh lesson about globalization," Jason Calacanis said. David Friedberg raised an even more radical policy risk some far-left politicians are already discussing not only restricting data center construction but also restricting the development, deployment, and even use of AI models themselves. He believes the deeper logic behind this is a fundamental contest between state power and control over AI technology: whoever masters the strongest AI capabilities masters an absolute advantage over citizens and markets. This article is republished from "Wall Street Insights," author: Dong Jing; GMTEight editor: Liu Jiayin.