Trump blames voters for historic US stock market plunge

US President Donald Trump has blamed voters for a major stock market plunge, attributing the decline to the Democrats' strong performance in Tuesday's midterm elections.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday night, Trump said the Democrats' electoral victory had triggered the market downturn.

The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell more than 5 per cent on Thursday, marking one of the biggest declines in US stock market history. The sharp fall was driven largely by losses in artificial intelligence-related stocks.

Investors have become increasingly concerned about the future of AI development and data centres after Democratic candidates who won in Tuesday's elections pledged to introduce restrictions on the technology during their campaigns.

Reacting to the market decline, Trump wrote on Truth Social: "It is very sad to see the Stock Market crashing today because of the big Democrat win on Tuesday — you have nobody to blame but yourselves!"

The market decline came a day after US stocks had surged on Wednesday, following the emergence of preliminary election results. Trump had then been quick to take credit for the market rally.

However, the recovery proved short-lived, with stock futures falling again during pre-market trading late Thursday.

Asian stock markets also recorded significant losses, signalling continued weakness in global markets on Friday.

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