Short SpaceX.* Short Palantir.*

*Not financial advice. 

Sherrod Brown is Back, Baby

We’ve got another flip on our hands! Brown has defeated the bodacious Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), per the Associated Press.

This is in keeping with a trend we’ve seen for a few cycles now: Appointed incumbents just do not have the same juice as elected incumbents. Brown will now serve out the rest of Vance’s term and have to run again in 2028.

Silicon Valley haaaaates Brown and spent heavily against him. Alas, ’twas not enough.
- Kate Riga 

 

There are a number of tech firms, wildly overvalued and heavily dependent on government contracts, that were working under the assumption that the Trump administration was about to pour a river of money into their coffers. SpaceX (Musk) and Palantir (Thiel and every bit as evil as you'd expect) are at the top of that list. 

These companies now face a very different world. The Golden Dome likely to be dead in the water as soon as the new congress is seated. Artemis may not be safe as the budget crisis looms. Every contract is going to scrutinized. And I'd be surprised if we don't see a general belt tightening on defense spending which is the bread and butter of these companies. 

Speaking of SpaceX, if there's one state government that Elon doesn't want to piss off, it's Texas after moving both of his actual companies out of California to the then friendlier Lone Star state. In retrospect, spending hundreds of millions of dollars attacking Texas Democrats (a party that now holds the office of governor, lt. governor, and state attorney general) may have been a mistake. 

It doesn't help that Musk and Tech Bros in general are currently about as popular as anti-biotic resistant gonorrhea or that the GOP and Silicon Valley have recently formed an ardent mutual admiration society (see yesterday's post). As previously mentioned, going after Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, Ellison, and the rest is both good politics and good policy.