It can be (and arguably should be) designed so that tension at the bottom is zero. Cut it at the base, and it would float, and maybe drift slowly. If it's cut

It can be (and arguably should be) designed so that tension at the bottom is zero. Cut it at the base, and it would float, and maybe drift slowly. If it's cut above that, it depends. In most scenarios, part of it would shoot out into space, the rest would whiplash around the Earth, mostly burning in the atmosphere, some of it (pretty short chunk) would hit the ground at very large velocities.