President Trump says he regrets not taking a bigger stake in Intel when the government bailed out the chipmaker last year. In an interview with Fortune, Trump revealed that he personally negotiated a deal under the CHIPS Act to convert roughly $89 billion in subsidies into equity — buying about 433 million shares at $20.47 each for a 9.9% stake. Just eight months later, that investment has ballooned to over $50 billion, giving the government a paper profit of more than $41 billion.
The insane returns are a direct result of the government muscling business Intel's way. According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple has reached a preliminary agreement to let Intel manufacture chips for it — breaking TSMC's years-long monopoly on iPhone processors. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who sits on Intel's board as a major shareholder, has been meeting with Tim Cook for months, pressuring him to shift orders to Intel. With Nvidia and other AI giants chewing up TSMC's capacity, Apple finally caved.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan has been on a tear since taking the job a year ago. He's already locked down three megadeals: Nvidia invested $5 billion in September for Intel to fab its data center CPUs, and Elon Musk announced a joint venture fab in Texas last month. To handle the flood of orders, Intel is pouring cash into its bleeding-edge 14A process and poached Wei-Jen Lo from TSMC to run its foundry business — risking a lawsuit in the process. The good news sent Intel's stock soaring to an all-time high of $132.75.
Trump shared details of his negotiation with Tan in the interview. 'I told him to give the country 10 percent for free,' Trump said. 'He agreed immediately, and I immediately regretted it. I should have asked for more.' He also mused that Intel should be the biggest company in the world, and that if he'd been in office earlier and slapped tariffs on imported chips, 'all of TSMC's business would be Intel's right now.' As for when the government will cash out, Trump said he prefers to sell slowly so the stock doesn't crash.