Investors Yeet Orsted After Trump Takes TNT to Their $1.5B Wind Farm (Right Before Ribbon Cutting)

Live look at renewable energies companies right now:

It’s almost respectable how much Donnie Politics hates renewables. Like, the man has dedicated more energy to killing wind and solar than most people put into their marriages. If it ain’t oil or coal, he treats it like the herpes of the power grid… gotta burn it off, no questions asked. But his latest stunt is easily his pettiest prank yet (if I do say so myself). Which brings us to his newest casualty: Orsted, the world’s biggest offshore wind developer, who just got pantsed in front of the whole class. And yeah the Trump administration just pulled a move so out of pocket on one of their projects even Exxon executives are saying “damn, that’s rough.”

It all started late Friday afternoon, when the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a stop-work order on Orsted’s $1.5 billion Revolution Wind project off Rhode Island. And this time it wasn’t a “come back when the paperwork’s done.” This was a full-on, “drop your tools and walk away” order.

(Source: ABC News)

Why does this matter? Because the project was basically finished. Orsted had already sunk 45 of the 65 turbines into the Atlantic and was more than 80% complete. In other words, this wasn’t a speculative green dream… it was supposed to be cranking out electricity for 350,000 homes across Rhode Island and Connecticut next year, with 20-year contracts already locked in. To put it in perspective, imagine building a house: you’ve poured the foundation, framed it, hung drywall, painted everything… and just as the kitchen appliances are being delivered, the county strolls in and says, “actually, we’re putting a DMV here instead.”

So naturally, investors did what investors always do when a project goes from “almost finished” to “politically nuked overnight”... they panic-sold like their keyboards were on fire. So far, Orsted’s stock is down 18%, sliding to a record low of about $25 a share. For context, that’s a 90% collapse since 2021, back when renewables were the market’s favorite child and every ESG fund manager was promising a clean-energy utopia (shoutout to Biden’s “green revolution” playbook). Today, Orsted is limping along with a market cap of roughly $10.5 billion. 

And the hits keep coming. Orsted was already planning to raise $9.4 billion in fresh cash through a rights issue to fund its U.S. projects. But after this clown show, analysts are asking the obvious question: who tf wants to toss billions into a company that can have its most prized possessions deleted by executive order? Construction risk is one thing… political risk at this level is like playing Russian roulette where all six chambers are loaded and Donnie’s holding the gun.

The nightmare scenario here is that Revolution Wind never flips the switch. That would mean billions in write-downs, penalty payments to contractors, and a potential pullback from the U.S. market entirely. And if you think this is some one-off… lol, nope. Earlier this year, Trump froze one of Norway’s Equinor projects too. The order was eventually reversed, but not before the company absorbed an $800 million loss. If that’s the “good outcome,” you can see why Orsted investors are dumping shares to buy literally anything else.

(Source: Financial Times)

The bigger issue is this goes beyond just one project. Trump has been clear he wants to choke off approvals for all new wind and solar. Renewable executives are warning that this kind of blanket blockade will drive up energy prices and leave the U.S. grid more fragile than it already is. Demand for power isn’t slowing down… between EVs, AI data centers, and population growth, the grid is under pressure like never before. So cutting off renewables at the knees doesn’t just hit companies like Orsted, it sets up the entire energy system for a supply crunch.

So yeah, Orsted’s Revolution Wind was supposed to be a clean-energy flex. Instead, it’s a half-built $1.5B monument to how fast politics can curb-stomp an entire industry. The stock is wrecked, the fundraising looks cursed, and investors just got the harshest reminder: you can bolt 45 turbines into the ocean floor, but if policy turns against you, they might as well be lawn ornaments.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Exxon as mentioned in the article.