In August last year, the US government announced that it had acquired a 10 percent stake in Intel following an $8.9 billion investment in the chipmaking firm. President Donald Trump has now said that he should have asked for a bigger stake during his negotiations with the Intel CEO.
In an interview with Fortune, Trump revealed how he convinced Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to give the US government a 10 percent stake in exchange for the investment. “I said, ‘Give the country 10% ownership in Intel for free,’” Trump added. According to Trump, Tan replied, “You have a deal.” Trump then said, “Shit, I should have asked for more.”
As part of the US government agreement with Intel, the chipmaker received $5.7 billion in funding under the CHIPS Act, which had been approved but had not yet been paid to the company. Intel was also granted an additional $3.2 billion under a separate government investment pledge. In total, Intel received roughly $8.9 billion from the US government and gave up a 10 percent stake.
Following the US government"s investment and major layoffs, Intel’s stock has risen by up to 300 percent since then. The US government’s initial investment in Intel is now worth up to $50 billion. Trump said, “Do I get credit for it? Does anybody even know I did that?”
Trump also criticized Taiwan’s dominance in the chip market, saying that Intel could have become the biggest company in the world if he had been in office at the right time to protect the US chipmaker through tariffs. “If I had been president when all these companies started sending their chips in from China, I would have put a tariff on that would have protected Intel,” Trump said.
Despite TSMC now producing iPhone chips in the US, the Trump administration has repeatedly asked the Taiwanese company to move at least 40% of its chip manufacturing operations to the US, a move Taiwan officials say is impossible.