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Democratic lawmakers preparing to take control of Congress in January said Sunday they would investigate Elon Musk, scrutinize corporate conduct and examine decisions by senior Trump administration officials.

For investors, the planned inquiries could bring legal expenses, disclosure demands and reputational risks

Global stock markets have climbed as investors continue to bet on bright prospects for the tech giants driving the AI boom.

In the United States, all three major stock indexes rose on Tuesday, led by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, which gained 1.18 percent.

The benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.6 percent, while the narrower Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.03 percent.

Five of the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks rose, led by Tesla, up 4.04 percent.

Amazon gained 1.61 percent, while Apple and Alphabet gained 0.93 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively.

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable public company, rose almost 1 percent after announcing a $3bn investment in Meta’s equity offering.

Meta fell 1.64 percent, while Microsoft fell 0.24 percent.

Other big movers in tech included Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom and Intel, which gained 5.45 percent, 4 percent and 3.61 percent, respectively.

Asia Pacific markets rally

Gains continued in the Asia Pacific on Wednesday, with stock markets in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia climbing.

The KOSPI in Seoul led the gains, with the benchmark index up 5.84 percent as of 03:00 GMT.

The surge came as South Korea’s SK Hynix, one of the world’s top three memory chip makers, announced blockbuster third-quarter results on Wednesday, with operating profit soaring about 630 percent year-on-year to 83.33 trillion won ($62.8bn).

SK Hynix shares listed in South Korea surged more than 8 percent following the results.

In Tokyo, the benchmark Nikkei 225 was up 1.26 percent, while the TAIEX in Taipei was up 1.32 percent.

The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney was up 0.11 percent.

Investors are keenly anticipating upcoming earnings reports from major tech players as they try to gauge whether their massive investments in AI will pay dividends.

Microsoft and Alphabet report their latest results on Wednesday, followed by Amazon on Thursday and Apple on Monday.

On Monday, AI giant Anthropic filed paperwork for its hotly anticipated IPO, reporting a net loss of $80.7bn in the first half of 2026 on $16.3bn in revenue.

Tech firms have poured hundreds of billions of dollars each into AI infrastructure, fuelling debate over whether a speculative market bubble could be forming similar to the one that preceded the 2000 dot-com crash.

Global AI investment is forecast to hit $2.7 trillion in 2026 and $3.6 trillion in 2027, according to Gartner, a technology insights company.

Oil prices, which have been elevated since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran, rose about 1 percent as Asian markets opened on Wednesday amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, including hostilities between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis.

Futures for Brent crude, the global benchmark, stood at about $115 a barrel, up 59 percent from before the war began.

Tech-heavy Nasdaq falls 2.6 percent as debate rages over whether AI is a bubble.

US tech stocks have dropped sharply amid market jitters over the sustainability of companies’ enormous capital investments in AI.

The Nasdaq Composite, which is dominated by tech firms linked to the AI boom, fell 2.6 percent on Thursday, its steepest fall since the index tumbled 4.2 percent on June 5.

The broader S&P 500 slid 1.21 percent, the benchmark’s biggest drop since a 1.52 percent decline on July 29.

Apart from Apple, each of the “Magnificent 7”, which make up more than one-third of the overall market, saw substantial losses.

Meta dropped nearly 7 percent after it raised its projected capital spending for this year to $135bn to $145bn in its latest earnings report, even as the Facebook parent company’s net profit fell short of expectations.

Amazon fell 4.6 percent, while Nvidia dropped 4.4 percent.

Tesla and Alphabet both fell 3.1 percent, while Microsoft declined 2.2 percent.

Apple rose 1.2 percent.

The sell-off extended to other major tech players, including Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, both of which fell about 8 percent, and Broadcom, which slid 4.3 percent.

Rising oil prices since February, due to the fallout of the US-Israel war on Iran, added to the downbeat mood.

Brent crude futures rose 4 percent on Thursday and continued to climb on Friday morning, taking the international benchmark above $114.20 a barrel, its highest since May.

Stocks slip in Asian trading

Major stock markets in Asia opened lower on Friday, following the losses on Wall Street.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell more than 2 percent in morning trading before recovering some ground, while South Korea’s KOSPI dropped as much as 3.5 percent.

The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong fell about 0.5 percent.

Jay Goldberg, a senior analyst at Seaport Research Partners in San Francisco, said the swings in the market appeared to be driven more by sentiment than underlying fundamentals.

“In short, nothing has changed. Investors have just decided to be afraid this week. Everyone I speak to points to a different cause for the downfall … It’s just a giant wall of worry,” Goldberg told Al Jazeera.

“There are legitimate concerns about the AI trade, but this level of shift in the markets is driven much more by investor sentiment than any tangible reason.”

US tech companies’ huge investments in AI have stoked intense debate about whether a market bubble is forming similar to the one that preceded the 2000 dot-com crash.

While some Wall Street analysts view current levels of investment in datacentres and graphics processing units as unsustainable, others argue that AI will revolutionise society to a degree that justifies the eye-watering sums involved.

Global AI investment is forecast to reach $2.7 trillion in 2026 and $3.6 trillion in 2027, according to technology insights company Gartner.