US president Donald Trump says Intel should give the US government a 10% stake in the company, echoing a recent statement made by US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, who said earlier this week that the US government should get an equity stake in Intel in exchange for CHIPS Act funding.
Trump had actually called for the immediate resignation of Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan earlier this month over his alleged ties to China, but minds apparently changed following a meeting between the two, as the US government began talks about taking a stake in the company. Lutnick then said Intel's funding under the CHIPS Act, which Trump called "a horrible, horrible thing" earlier this year, should come in exchange for providing a stake in the company.
It's a position the US president shares. Asked about "the 10%" while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office today, Trump said:
"I met a man, he was a very nice man, and I called for his removal because I saw something by a man named Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas. He's a great guy, friend of mine, supporter of mine, big supporter. I was a supporter of him too. And he wrote a pretty nasty story about the head of Intel, and I said, 'Well, that's right, he should resign,' and he came and he saw me, and we talked for a while. I liked him a lot, I thought he was very good. I thought he was somewhat a victim, but you know, nobody's a total victim, I guess. And I said, 'You know what? I think the United States should be given 10% of Intel.' And he said, 'I would consider that.' I said, 'Well I would like you to do that,' because Intel's been left behind, as you know, compared to Jensen and some of our friends, Nvidia and some of the people, and people in—Intel should have never been—Intel was the biggest, most powerful chip company in the world."
Trump: "I said, 'You know what? I think the United States should be given 10% of Intel.'"
— @atrupar.com (@atrupar.com.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T20:51:14.318Z
Trump then went on to suggest that the deal had already been done. "I think it's a great deal for them, I think it's a great deal—he walked in, wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10 billion, to the United States. So we picked up 10 billion. And we do a lot of deals like that. I'll do more of them."
Trump on Intel boss: "He walked in wanting to keep his job and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States. We do a lot of deals like that. I'll do more of them."
— @atrupar.com (@atrupar.com.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T20:51:14.325Z
It should be somewhat unexpected to see a purportedly conservative figurehead advocating for the state to seize the means of production—Ronald Reagan would never—but, as far as I can make sense of any of this, that does seem to be what's happening here, spiritually anyway. And it's resulted in a sort of political alliance of convenience that makes even less sense as a team-up than Batman and Green Arrow.
"I am glad the Trump administration is in agreement with the amendment I offered three years ago," US senator Bernie Sanders, a Democrat and one of Trump's most vociferous opponents, said in a statement provided to Reuters. "Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return."
I don't think governments should be providing funding to multi-billion-dollar companies, but I also don't think they should be 'investing' in them—picking winners and losers in the markets is not what governments are for. But I don't think any of the rest of this bullshit should be happening either, and given all that we've seen in the recent past—thinking a lot about Apple CEO Tim Cook's golden gift here—I imagine the Trump administration will get its cut, and having established that precedent, will go after other companies for the same thing. We'll see what happens next week.
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