Key Points
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Neocloud companies are growing rapidly, but their losses, debt, and dilution make them risky stocks to own as interest rates rise and Democrats crack down on data centers.
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Hyperscalers are growing slower, but they’re better diversified, more profitable, and could actually benefit from slower data center spending.
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On Nov. 3, the Democrats swept the House and Senate in the U.S. midterm elections. They also flipped the governorships of five states — Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, and Texas — from red to blue. That outcome was grim news for the booming AI market, since many Democrats support tighter restrictions on the construction of new data centers.
That’s why it wasn’t surprising when many top neocloud stocks — including CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) and Nebius (NASDAQ: NBIS) — dropped after election night. Yet the top hyperscaler stocks — Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) — rallied. Let’s see why that happened, and if that divergence will continue for the foreseeable future.
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Why did the neocloud stocks stumble?
Neocloud companies buy and lease data centers, load them up with Nvidia‘s top-tier GPUs, and rent that computing power to other companies. By providing only raw GPU power, these companies can process AI tasks more efficiently than larger cloud infrastructure platforms, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure.
However, most of these neocloud companies are unprofitable, yet they’re taking on more debt and issuing more shares to buy or lease new data centers and GPUs. That strategy works as long as the AI market continues to expand, regulators don’t actively block the construction of new data centers, and interest rates remain stable.
But today, the macro headwinds could drive more companies to rein in their AI spending; the Democrats (and some Republicans) could actively block new data center projects, and the Fed — which already raised its benchmark rates for the first time in three years this September — could implement more rate hikes if inflation doesn’t cool off.
CoreWeave, Nebius, and other neocloud companies are still growing rapidly, but they’re racking up steep losses and taking on significant leverage.
CoreWeave ended the second quarter of 2026 with $72 billion in total liabilities, a debt-to-equity ratio of 14.3, and an average yield to maturity of 14.1% to 15.6% on its senior unsecured bonds. Analysts still expect its revenue to surge 151% in 2026 and 106% in 2027, but they’re probably not sure if it can stay solvent if interest rates keep rising and the AI market cools off.
That’s why the top neocloud stocks sank after the election, and why Elon Musk recently predicted the industry could face a “guppy-level death and consolidation” in the near future.
Why did the hyperscaler stocks soar?
Amazon, Microsoft, and other hyperscalers are also aggressively expanding their cloud and AI infrastructure. Some of them — including Microsoft and Meta — are even renting capacity from neocloud companies to supplement their massive AI demands.
In theory, tighter data center regulations, higher interest rates, and slower AI spending could potentially hurt these hyperscalers. However, hyperscalers like Amazon and Microsoft are also profitable, have ample liquidity, and are well diversified across other industries.
Amazon generates most of its revenue from its retail business, while most of its profits come from AWS. AWS has certainly benefited from the AI market’s rapid expansion, but it also provides cloud storage and compute to a wide range of non-AI industries.
Microsoft relies on Azure for most of its growth, but its business is also diversified across enterprise software, PC hardware, and gaming. It’s also using AI to cut costs (by automating more jobs) rather than simply increasing its spending to expand its AI infrastructure.
Moreover, tighter data center restrictions might make top hyperscaler stocks more appealing in two ways. First, they could drive them to reduce their capex (which has soared over the past two years) by throttling their aggressive expansion plans. Second, those restrictions could make it harder for smaller cloud infrastructure companies to catch up to the market leaders.
That’s why hyperscaler stocks jumped after the election, while neocloud stocks stumbled. I believe that trend will continue until we get a clearer idea of where the Democratic majority plans to steer the broader AI and data center markets.
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Leo Sun has positions in Amazon and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
