Texas voters elected Gina Hinojosa governor on November 3 after she promised a moratorium on data center approvals until the Legislature passes new protections. The next day Hut 8 fell 23.2%, Cipher 20.0%, Galaxy 17.0% and CleanSpark 16.6%, while Riot rose 9.6%.
"Exposed to Texas" covers very different positions, so I read what nine listed companies have told investors about their Texas capacity and where it stands with ERCOT, the state's grid operator.
About 18.3 GW across eight companies. TeraWulf, the ninth, sold its Texas stake in July. The total mixes gross power, utility capacity and critical IT load, so it is an order of magnitude, not a precise sum.
About 3.7 GW (20%) is approved or outside ERCOT's Batch Zero study, by the companies' own account: Riot's 1.7 GW, 1.63 GW approved at Galaxy's Helios campus, and 371 MW at Core Scientific's Denton site.
About 11.6 GW (63%) is conditional or still in ERCOT's process: Cipher, IREN's Sweetwater hub, the rest of Core Scientific and Galaxy, Hut 8's Beacon Point and CleanSpark.
About 3.0 GW (16%) has no stated status or still needs approval: IREN's Childress site, MARA's Matagorda site and Hut 8's two West Texas sites.
Most of the process was already on hold. On August 3 Governor Abbott directed the state utility regulator and ERCOT to audit data center projects before approving more, with about 474 GW of requests in the queue. New rules for loads of 75 MW or more took effect on October 8. Cipher's 10-Q says ERCOT expects to issue its reports on December 10, and that it "has temporarily paused certain energization approvals for large data center loads".
The clearest positions. Riot's 10-Q says its Rockdale and Corsicana capacity "was already energized, it is not subject to the audit". Hut 8 has 1,000 MW of its 1,330 MW under construction at Beacon Point, and on its November 4 call management said it anticipates "an unconditional classification on December 17". MARA's 2,000 MW Matagorda purchase carries a cash limit: the first milestone payment depends on Batch Zero approval, "with no payment due absent such approval".
What the filings leave open. I found no statement on whether a moratorium would reach projects that are already approved or under construction, and that is the line that matters most for the table. The November 5 selling also went well beyond Texas, with the semiconductor ETF SMH down 11.2%, so the moves since the election mix a Texas effect with a wider AI selloff.
The full company-by-company table, with every source filing and call linked, is in the study: Texas data center moratorium: which stocks are exposed, and how much.
Data: SEC filings and earnings calls, processed by Equibles.
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