President Donald Trump announced Friday that the U.S. federal government will take a 10 percent stake in the chip manufacturer Intel. This share, worth about $10 billion at current stock prices, will be acquired by converting grants provided to the company under the former President Joe Biden’s CHIPS Act into equity.
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The proposal, Trump said, came from Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who Trump argued should resign earlier this year. “He walked in wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States,” said the president.
Shareholders will need to approve the acquisition, and the government may face legal challenges. If the deal goes through, the resulting stake will be one of the largest government interventions in industry since the Great Recession. The government will not have voting rights.
In recent years, the U.S. has been working to shore up its domestic chip-manufacturing industry in the face of growing Chinese dominance.
