The Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, California, US, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photos
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David Paul Morris/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photos
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, and so they’ve agreed to do it, and I feel it is an important deal for them,” Trump advised reporters. “He walked in wanting to maintain his job, and he ended up giving us $10 billion for america,” Trump stated.
In a statement 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 boldness the Administration has in Intel to advance key nationwide priorities and the critically necessary position the corporate performs in increasing the home semiconductor business.”
A part of the federal government’s stake, price $5.7 billion, could be funded by grants awarded, however not but paid, to the corporate below the CHIPS and Science Act, the 2022 legislation 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 below 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 could have no board illustration or different “governance or info rights,” in line with the assertion, and the federal government agreed to vote with the corporate’s board on issues requiring shareholder approval, with restricted exceptions.
On Reality Social, Trump known as it a “nice Deal for America and, additionally, an important Deal for INTEL. Constructing vanguard 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 america, and a brand new milestone in how keen CEOs are to cede the president an unprecedented amount of control over their firms.
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 below 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 known as it a “historic settlement.”
Intel, as soon as a pacesetter in chip manufacturing, has confronted a raft of issues in recent times.
It has stumbled within the race to feed hovering information heart demand for chips used to construct synthetic intelligence fashions referred to as graphics processing models, or GPUs. The chief in that area 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. government 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 an announcement, the corporate stated it follows “guidelines the U.S. authorities units for our participation in worldwide markets.”)
Intel’s income has fallen in recent times, driving its market capitalization down. This yr, the corporate reported web losses for the primary two quarters.
President Trump took direct goal at Intel CEO Tan earlier this month, calling on him to resign following reviews he invested in a spread of Chinese language tech firms. Days later, Tan went to the White Home for a face-to-face assembly with the president, after which Trump called the assembly “fascinating” and Tan a “success.”
Intel is planning to invest 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 ultimately produces.
“One of many questions that we nonetheless have not seen solutions to but within the public sphere, at the very least, is how this dialogue about fairness financing pertains to the query of who’s going to be the client for Intel’s factories which might be being constructed and their processes or their manufacturing processes which might be being introduced on-line,” stated Chris Miller, a professor at Tufts College and the writer of Chip Struggle: The Struggle for the World’s Most Vital 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.
