🪑 Is Hegseth Getting Benched?

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Pete Hegseth's job had a very long Wednesday.

First, CBS News reported that Trump was privately asking advisers whether to replace his Defense Secretary.

Then Trump told reporters he isn't considering it at all: "No, I think he's doing a very good job."

Two stories, one day. Here's how it went down.

Republicans got hammered in Tuesday's midterms. Democrats now control both the House and the Senate.

The war with Iran is getting much of the blame. Vice President JD Vance blamed the defeat on the war in a social media post.

When your own VP points at the war, you know it's become a political problem.

According to CBS, Trump hadn't made a decision. Some White House officials also expect Adm. Brad Cooper (CENTCOM) and Gen. Dan Caine (Joint Chiefs chairman) to face criticism over how they ran the Iran conflict.

One CBS source named a possible successor: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The timing is neat. DeSantis could be confirmed by the current Senate before the new Congress arrives, then start at the Pentagon after his governor term ends on Jan. 5.

That's a backup plan with a start date already pencilled in.

Trump had his own career suggestion for Hegseth: the Tennessee Senate seat Marsha Blackburn is giving up after she won the governor's race on Tuesday.

"I actually think he'd be very popular if he did that," Trump said. He also said he hadn't heard of any such plan.

Nothing says "your job is safe" like your boss suggesting other jobs for you.

This is a political story, but it touches some very large companies:

Their outlooks depend partly on Pentagon spending priorities, weapons procurement, and the direction of US military operations.

A new Pentagon chief would add uncertainty on all three. To be clear, no procurement changes have been announced.

The bigger question is divided government. A Democratic Congress controls the purse strings and plans to look closely at the Iran war.

Democrats also pursued impeachment against Hegseth before the election. House Democrats say they may try again once they take control.

So Hegseth has kept his job for now. He also faces a Congress that's very interested in what he's doing with it.

If you hold defense stocks or a defense ETF, the next few months could bring a lot of headline noise. Personnel rumours, hearings, and impeachment talk all make good headlines.

Budget fights in Congress will probably matter more for these companies' earnings than who runs the Pentagon.

Leaders come and go. Contracts tend to last longer.

Every Nvidia chip needs servers, networking, power and a data center to run. Analysts say the smaller companies supplying those pieces have more room to grow, with price targets up to 55%. Get all five tickers texted to you free today.

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Intel's CEO just dropped $9.71 million on his own stock.

That's 150,000 shares. Bought with his own money. Into a falling knife.

Lip-Bu Tan disclosed the purchase in an SEC filing on Wednesday.

He bought in several trades, paying between $64.705 and $64.735 a share.

That's a 3-cent spread across the whole buy. The man was not haggling.

Intel shares were down 2.5% by early Wednesday afternoon. That's the gentle part.

Over the past month, the stock has sunk nearly 50%.

Most stocks would call that a rough year. Intel did it in about four weeks.

So the CEO looked at a chart shaped like a ski slope and decided to buy a lift pass.

Executives sell stock for all sorts of reasons. Taxes. A divorce. A yacht with a smaller yacht inside it.

They buy for pretty much one reason: they think the price is heading higher.

That's why a CEO spending nearly $10 million of personal cash after a 50% slide makes the market sit up.

It's like the head chef eating at his own restaurant the week after a brutal review. Either he knows something, or he really likes the soup.

An insider buy is one signal worth noting. Guarantees are sold separately.

A few things to keep in mind:

If you follow Intel, this is a "confidence from the top" data point. Worth weighing next to the reasons the stock got cut in half in the first place.

Bottom line: the boss is buying. The market hasn't decided whether to follow him yet.

Elon Musk spent at least $474 million on the midterms. His side lost.

Now he's tweeting about putting data centers in space.

Makes sense. Lose the fight and announce you’re moving to the moon… 🚀

The midterms turned into a referendum on data centers, and Democrats ran on opposing them.

Their spend? About $173 million.

Musk's? At least $474 million, nearly 3x as much, with almost half of it poured into Texas alone.

The result: Democrats took both the Senate and the House. Money talks. Voters apparently talk louder.

The sting is sharpest in the state Musk bet hardest on.

Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa wants a moratorium on new data centers. That's a direct roadblock for Musk's expansion plans.

And Texas isn't alone. Prediction market Kalshi now expects five states to adopt data center moratoriums.

That's a trend line, and it's pointing the wrong way for anyone building AI infrastructure. 📈

Musk's response on X: data centers in space are "looking pretty appealing right now."

No zoning boards. No governors. No voters. Just vacuum and vibes.

How seriously is the market taking it? Kalshi traders are pricing the odds of a 1-megawatt data center going live in orbit:

Even a decade out, traders think it's still more likely to not happen than happen. Space is hard. Planning permission, it turns out, is also hard.

The AI boom runs on data centers, and data centers now have a political problem.

If more states hit pause, the companies racing to build AI capacity face slower timelines and higher costs. That matters for anyone holding Tesla, SpaceX, or the wider AI infrastructure trade.

The number worth watching is that moratorium count. Three to five in a few months is fast. If it keeps climbing, "build it on Earth" gets a lot more expensive.

And Musk's space pitch? For now it reads more like a mood than a plan.

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