The Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, California, US, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures
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David Paul Morris/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures
President Trump stated on Friday he had requested Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan for a ten% stake within the firm throughout a latest assembly on the White Home.
“He agreed, they usually’ve agreed to do it, and I feel it is a terrific deal for them,” Trump instructed reporters. “He walked in wanting to maintain his job, and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the US,” Trump stated.
In a assertion launched on the corporate’s web site late Friday afternoon, Intel confirmed that the federal government would make an $8.9 billion funding in Intel widespread inventory “reflecting the arrogance the Administration has in Intel to advance key nationwide priorities and the critically necessary function the corporate performs in increasing the home semiconductor trade.”
A part of the federal government’s stake, value $5.7 billion, could be funded by grants awarded, however not but paid, to the corporate underneath the CHIPS and Science Act, the 2022 regulation that licensed a complete of almost $53 billion in authorities funding for chip-related actions. Intel stated it already acquired $2.2 billion in CHIPS grants, making a complete funding of $11.1 billion.
One other $3.2 billion will probably be awarded to the corporate as a part of the Protection Division’s Safe Enclave program, which funds semiconductor manufacturing within the U.S.
The corporate’s assertion stated that underneath the phrases of the deal, the federal government has agreed to buy 433.3 million main shares of Intel widespread inventory at $20.47 per share, equal to a 9.9% stake within the firm. The federal government may have no board illustration or different “governance or info rights,” based on the assertion, and the federal government agreed to vote with the corporate’s board on issues requiring shareholder approval, with restricted exceptions.
On Fact Social, Trump referred to as it a “nice Deal for America and, additionally, a terrific Deal for INTEL. Constructing forefront Semiconductors and Chips, which is what INTEL does, is key to the way forward for our Nation.”
The deal is a extremely uncommon step — it marks an escalation within the Trump administration’s efforts to push chipmakers to fabricate in the US, and a brand new milestone in how keen CEOs are to cede the president an unprecedented quantity of management over their corporations.
Earlier this week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick previewed the deal in an interview on CNBC. “So we’ll ship the cash, which was already dedicated underneath the Biden administration. We’ll get fairness in return for it,” Lutnick stated.
After Trump’s remarks Friday afternoon, Lutnick posted on X that the U.S. “now owns 10% of Intel,” and he referred to as it a “historic settlement.”
Intel, as soon as a pacesetter in chip manufacturing, has confronted a raft of issues lately.
It has stumbled within the race to feed hovering information middle demand for chips used to construct synthetic intelligence fashions referred to as graphics processing items, or GPUs. The chief in that subject is Intel’s Santa Clara, California-based neighbor Nvidia, now the world’s largest firm with a market capitalization of over $4 trillion.
(Earlier in August, Trump introduced that Nvidia would pay the U.S. authorities 15% of its revenues of H20 chip gross sales in China in trade for being allowed to promote them there. An Nvidia spokesperson declined to remark to NPR on the 15% determine, and in a press release, the corporate stated it follows “guidelines the U.S. authorities units for our participation in worldwide markets.”)
Intel’s income has fallen lately, driving its market capitalization down. This 12 months, the corporate reported internet losses for the primary two quarters.
President Trump took direct purpose at Intel CEO Tan earlier this month, calling on him to resign following studies he invested in a variety of Chinese language tech corporations. Days later, Tan went to the White Home for a face-to-face assembly with the president, after which Trump referred to as the assembly “fascinating” and Tan a “success.”
Intel is planning to speculate greater than $28 billion in two chip manufacturing services in Ohio, however the plans have been delayed and analysts say it’s unclear if there will probably be ample demand for the chips the corporate finally produces.
“One of many questions that we nonetheless have not seen solutions to but within the public sphere, not less than, is how this dialogue about fairness financing pertains to the query of who’s going to be the client for Intel’s factories which are being constructed and their processes or their manufacturing processes which are being introduced on-line,” stated Chris Miller, a professor at Tufts College and the creator of Chip Struggle: The Struggle for the World’s Most Important Expertise.
“That is a key a part of the puzzle,” he stated, including it was too early to know if a possible fairness deal could be a boon for Intel or complicate the corporate’s efforts to attempt to lead the sphere once more.
