President Donald Trump says he’s just getting started as the nation’s financial advisor.
On Monday, Trump and team made clear that taking a roughly 10% stake in Intel is just the beginning of dealmaking that could lead to US taxpayers holding unprecedented shares in private companies.
“The president has made it clear all the way back to the campaign, he thinks that in the end, it would be great if the US could start to build up a sovereign wealth fund. So I’m sure that at some point there’ll be more transactions, if not in this industry then other industries,” Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said during an interview on CNBC.
Hassett, who could become the next chair of the Federal Reserve, said the Trump administration’s decision to convert roughly $11 billion in previously pledged grants to 433.3 million non-voting shares in Intel is largely due to the unique circumstances of the Biden-era CHIPS Act, a bipartisan policy aimed at boosting domestic semiconductor production. Trump has complained that the law gave away billions of dollars without getting enough in return for taxpayers.
Trump called the people who criticized the deal “stupid,” vowing that he would continue to make such agreements.
“Why are ‘stupid’ people unhappy with that? I will make deals like that for our Country all day long,” Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social. “I will also help those companies that make such lucrative deals with the United States States. I love seeing their stock price go up, making the USA RICHER, AND RICHER.”
Intel shares are up just over 2% from Friday’s close. The beleaguered chipmaker has seen foreign competitors like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company cut into its market share of advanced chips. The White House has said it is a national security risk if the US continues to import the overwhelming majority of the nation’s advanced chips, which power everything from smartphones to help train AI models.
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“I said, I think it would be good having the United States as your partner,” Trump told reporters on Friday, announcing the agreement in the Oval Office.
Trump added that the US “would do a lot more deals like that.”
Before Intel, the Trump administration took a so-called “golden share” in US Steel in exchange for approving Japanese-based Nippon Steel’s acquisition of US Steel. The White House has said Trump needed the golden share to make sure the new company kept its word to US employees.
The White House also raised eyebrows by requiring Nvidia and AMD to pay a 15% remittance on high-end chip sales to China. Before the agreement, Trump had halted the sale of Nvidia’s advanced chips to China.
Not everyone is in favor of the deals.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board, often considered the voice of establishment Republicans, compared the Intel stake to “corporate statism.” During the 2008 global financial crisis, the US government took a roughly 60% stake in General Motors. In the end, taxpayers lost about $10 billion.
