Two days after the midterm elections swept a bloc of artificial-intelligence skeptics into power, the new reality slammed into Wall Street.

Thursday's stock-market wipeout left few corners of the tech sector unscathed. Asian chip makers, Texas power producers, New Jersey compute providers, Silicon Valley software makers, contractors and data-center developers all tumbled, often in unison, in a selloff that appeared to feed on itself as the day wore on.

Traders making highly leveraged bets got crushed, but so did those who doubted a recent pullback in AI stocks would get worse. It did, from the opening bell.

"It seems like the rug is getting pulled out from under it," said Jonathan Corpina, senior managing partner at Meridian Equity Partners. "The market continues to be extremely fragile with all this uncertainty in front of us."

By Thursday afternoon, some $1 trillion of the Magnificent Seven group of tech giants collective market value had vanished. The PHLX Semiconductor index posted its worst day since the depths of the pandemic. The Nasdaq composite stumbled into correction territory. And the poster child of the AI boom, Nvidia, closed the session in the red -- for 2026.

It was only a few weeks ago when the AI stocks were still propelling the markets to record highs, with investors looking expectantly toward the planned initial public offerings of Anthropic and OpenAI.

Then, the pressure started to build.

First, cracks began to show in risky corners of the AI trade where companies amassed huge piles of debt to grow. Underwhelming earnings reports by Amazon and Alphabet sent tremors across trading desks.

Now, the power shift in Washington, as well as the election of several governors who have promised data-center restrictions, exposed the stock market's fragility. The yearslong bull market left the major U.S. benchmark indexes top-heavy and tech-dependent.

Thursday's selloff broadened to drag every sector of the S&P 500 into the red, a departure from recent sessions when weakness in AI stocks spurred a large rotation into other areas of the market. The Nasdaq composite's tumble marked its worst day since President Trump's tariff announcements last year sent markets haywire.

"When tech is leading the way, it's very easy to get on board," Corpina said. "When tech gets hit, it certainly makes investors a lot more uneasy."