Trump made the announcement during a briefing about the World Cup. | Photographer: Annabelle Gordon/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Image Preside...
President Donald Trump has confirmed that the US will take a 10 percent stake in Intel. During a press conference on Friday, Trump said Intel CEO Lip Bu-Tan agreed to give the government the stake, which is valued at around $10 billion. Earlier this month, Trump called on Bu-Tan to resign over his ties to China, and today he positioned the deal as a way for the executive to “keep his job.”
Trump told reporters that he floated the offer during negotiations with Bu-Tan. “I said, ‘I think it would be good having the United States as your partner,’” Trump said. “They’ve agreed to do it, and I think it’s a great deal for them.”
The confirmation of the deal comes just days after SoftBank announced plans to invest $2 billion into Intel to “further expand” chipmaking in the US. Trump is expected to formally announce the agreement with Intel later today. Intel didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
The federal government’s stake in the embattled chipmaker marks yet another move that blurs the line between government and business, as reports suggest that the Trump administration has demanded that Nvidia and AMD give the government a 15 percent cut of chip sales to China.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hinted at the government’s potential investment this week, saying during an interview with CNBC that it “would be a conversion of grants” meant to “stabilize the company for chip production here in the US.”
It doesn’t seem like this is the end for Trump’s approach to deal-making, as he said during the briefing that “he’ll do more of them” in the future.
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