- President Trump said Friday that Intel had agreed to give the U.S. government a stake equivalent to 10% of its market cap. Trump’s comments, scant on details, come as the administration has taken a more interventionist role in American companies including U.S. Steel and Nvidia.
President Donald Trump said Friday that American chipmaker Intel had agreed to give the U.S. government a 10% stake, worth roughly $10 billion.
“They’ve had some bad management over the years, and they got lost. I said, ‘I think you should pay us 10% of your company,’ and they said yes. That’s about $10 billion. I don’t get it; this comes to the United States of America,” he said at a press conference with reporters in the Oval Office.
Intel was previously allocated about $11 billion in grants to build out manufacturing in the U.S. under the CHIPS and Science Act passed by Congress during the Biden administration.
Under the new agreement with Trump, the government will take equity in return for the grant money allocated to Intel through the CHIPS Act, the New York Times reported. The government will not be involved in company governance or claim a board seat, according to the Times.
Intel shares jumped 5.5%.
A spokesperson for Intel declined to comment to Fortune. The White House did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick previously outlined plans for the U.S. government to receive equity in return for the CHIPS Act cash grants Intel has received.
“We should get an equity stake for our money, so we’ll deliver the money which was already committed under the Biden administration,” Lutnick told CNBC earlier this week.
Trump claimed the agreement came after a conversation with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, whom he previously called on to resign in a post on his social media website, Truth Social.
Trump said Friday he called for Tan’s ouster because of a letter Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sent to Intel’s chairman, expressing concern about Tan’s ties to Chinese companies. Following Trump’s post, Tan traveled to Washington for a meeting with Trump last week.
“He walked in wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10 billion for the American people,” Trump said Friday.
The Intel agreement comes as the Trump administration has shown a recent willingness to take a more interventionist role with U.S. companies. As a condition of the merger between Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, the administration demanded that it name a board member to the combined entity and secure a “golden share,” giving it veto power over company decisions.
The U.S. also recently reached a revenue-sharing agreement with chipmakers Nvidia and AMD, giving the government 15% of sales generated through AI chip sales in China as part of its terms for granting export licenses to the companies. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last week similar agreements could be expanded to other industries.
Some Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), have criticized Trump’s plan for the U.S. government to take a stake in Intel.
“If socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea,” Paul wrote Wednesday in a post on X.
Still, Trump was undeterred by the criticism and noted Friday that the government will continue its interventionist path as long as the agreements don’t hurt the U.S. military or security.
“We do a lot of deals like that. I’ll do more of them,” he said.
