Shares of Micron Technology plunged to $741.21 on November 5, extending a brutal week-long selloff that has erased roughly 20% of the stock's value since October 29, when it traded near $934. The immediate catalyst: Bloomberg and Reuters reported that Micron has paused construction on a planned $4.5 billion memory-chip fabrication plant in Taiwan due to an unresolved labor dispute — a stoppage that threatens both its production timeline and its standing in the global chip-supply race. Micron Freezes Its $4.5 Billion Taiwan Chip Plant as Workers Demand a Bigger Slice of the AI Boom — How Deep Does the Damage Go?
Shares of Micron Technology cratered 6.8% to $741.21 on November 5, capping a week in which the stock has shed roughly $193 per share — a 20% decline from its October 29 close of $934.27. Bloomberg reported that Micron has suspended plans for a memory-chip plant in Taiwan due to a protracted labor dispute, "throwing into question the fate of a major production base for crucial AI components." The freeze hit a stock already reeling from a broader post-election rout in chip and data-center names.
Workers Want Cash, Not Stock — and That Changes the Math. Workers want a bigger share of the record profits Micron is earning from the AI boom; the Taoyuan union is demanding 15% of operating profit paid fully in cash rather than partly in stock.
Micron posted fiscal 2026 revenue of $133.19 billion and net income of $84.97 billion — numbers that make that demand enormously expensive. If labor costs reset structurally higher across Micron's Taiwan operations, margins narrow at precisely the moment the company is spending aggressively to compete.
A $4.5 Billion Delay in a $27 Billion Spending Year. The Taoyuan project, budgeted between $3 billion and $4.5 billion, was aimed at producing high-bandwidth memory and DRAM by 2028.
Full-year fiscal 2026 capital expenditures totaled $27.37 billion , meaning this single plant represents roughly 16% of an entire year's investment budget. Analysts already warned that capacity additions were unlikely to resolve shortages of high-bandwidth memory before 2027, with packaging constraints remaining a limiting factor. Any further delay tightens that timeline.
The Election Adds a Second Layer of Pain. Democrats' sweeping midterm victory eased political uncertainty broadly but sent data-center shares lower on fears of tighter AI regulation.
In Q2 2026 alone, at least 45 data-center projects worth $68 billion were disrupted by local opposition.
Democratic candidates won governorships in Texas, Ohio, and Georgia — states with large planned AI data-center projects — and the risk of regulation and permitting delays was immediately priced in. For Micron, whose growth story depends on selling memory into those very data centers, slower buildouts translate directly into slower demand.
Micron Has the Cash — but Not the Certainty. The company ended fiscal 2026 with $62.31 billion in adjusted free cash flow and $73.48 billion in cash and investments — more than enough to absorb a construction pause. A third round of negotiations is set for November 6, with labor ministry officials attending. A quick resolution would likely be dismissed as noise. A prolonged standoff, however, would hand rivals Samsung and SK hynix — whose high-bandwidth memory capacity already runs three to four times Micron's level — even more room to run.