Some lawyers and bankers say the Intel deal may face legal challenges as the CHIPS Act may not allow the US government to convert grants into equity
and every American should be [video] Kelsey Piper / @kelseytuoc : @recurseparadox Congress can repeal the CHIPS act if they want to. (I think they shouldn't, but they could). But ‘Congress authorized grants so now we can nationalize you for free’ is nuts. Kirk Wilcox / @kirkwilcox : “The villains in Atlas Shrugged are too unrealistic” [image] Sam Dodini / @microsamonomics : When presented with an option to expand state power, and by extension, his own, Trump has never and will never choose the wise path of constraint. It is the antithesis of American ideals and exactly what the founding fathers warned against. Peter Harrell / @petereharrell : I will let others debate the merits of the government taking 10% of Intel. (Ok, count me skeptical). But I am coming to the view it is probably legal. If Congress doesn't want more government ownership of the private sector, Congress is going to have to act. Essay forthcoming. Eric S. Raymond / @esrtweet : Today in “Would you idiots please stop trying to make me into a Trump supporter?” The federal government just paid $8.9B to take a 10% stake in Intel . Various people are posturing about “socialism” and Trump “seizing the means of production”. There's a lot for me to disagree Justin Wolfers / @justinwolfers : August 7: Trump demands Intel fire its' CEO, Lip-Bu Tan August 11: Trump meets with Lip-Bu Tan August 22: Trump announces purchase of 10% of Intel, and that “I negotiated this Deal with Lip-Bu Tan, the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ James Surowiecki / @jamessurowiecki : @mquintos @scottlincicome It absolutely does. Once the govt has a stake in the company, it's going to be highly invested - literally - in protecting its interests. Scott Lincicome / @scottlincicome : Also, this is wild: by handing over the equity stake to the US govt, Intel no longer has to meet the CHIPS Act conditions (i.e., building US-based fabs) that, if met, would allow them to access the remaining billions in taxpayer funds?!?! Industrial policy FTW, again. [image] @iancutress : @whyteciaran @intel Turns a grant into equity. If ever a bail out is needed, there's less to acquire for a controlling stake. If anything, the administration prides itself on business acumen. Thus, it wants ownership of businesses. Honestly though, this means (a) Intel gets all the Chips Act money @jonmasters : @danielnewmanUV In my purely personal opinion, giving Chips Act funds should always have been contingent on guaranteed equal access for everyone. My beef with the whole thing was that this wasn't an iron clad requirement for everyone receiving funds. Similar with any taxpayer investment Dan Primack / @danprimack : Asked a U.S. senators office if there's anything bf in the CHIPS Act that permits loans to be converted to equity. The response: “it does not explicitly forbid it.” @deliprao : This is cost tax payers $9B and if Intel doesn't get its act together & pull a surprise move (a low prob. event), tax payers become bag holders. That's what Trump enabled. The real question now is how much money folks in the Trump admin got indirectly from Intel or Intel's Daniel Vassallo / @dvassallo : Trump said the United States took 10% of Intel and paid nothing for these shares. Who did they take the shares from? Jeremy Horpedahl / @jmhorp : August 7, 2025: Trump calls for the resignation of Intel's CEO ("no other solution"), calls him “highly conflicted” 15 days later: Intel CEO agrees to give Trump and the US government 10% of the company, Trump calls him “highly respected” Totally normal stuff [image] Patrick Moorhead / @patrickmoorhead : I'm not yet where other analysts are yet on a 100% Intel split between Foundry and Product Co. But what I CAN say is that Foundry, to succeed, must have an independent board who can make wafer and packaging allocations AND have a legal liability to keep foundry customer designs Scott Lincicome / @scottlincicome : P.S. If you don't see why the government becoming a large (the largest?) shareholder in Intel - and thus having a keen interest in its share price - is wildly different from (and worse than) a grant, contract, or tax break, I don't know what to tell you. Daniel Newman / @danielnewmanuv : Funny to see some of the same people that cheered about ‘Chips Act Grants’ losing their minds about the government investing in $INTC. So giving the company money with largely no strings is ok? 🙄 But having the potential to get the money back by having non-voting shares Scott Lincicome / @scottlincicome : A terrible decision bad for almost everyone. Six quick reasons why: 1. Bad for Intel's long-term viability, as politics, not commercial considerations, increasingly drive its decisions. (SOEs are notoriously slow, bloated, & unproductive.) Foreign govts might also target it. @iancutress : Here we go. US Government to purchase 9.9% of new issuance stock of @Intel $INTC. This is Chips Act money converted to equity. $2.2b already paid, +$8.9b means $11.1b total. 433.3m primary shares at $20.47/share. This will be a non-voting position. https://www.intc.com/... [image] Howard Lutnick / @howardlutnick : BIG NEWS: The United States of America now owns 10% of Intel, one of our great American technology companies. This historic agreement strengthens U.S. leadership in semiconductors, which will both grow our economy and help secure America's technological edge. Thanks to Intel CEO @LipBuTan1 for striking a deal that's fair to Intel and fair to the American People. Julia Ioffe / @juliaioffe : Boy am I glad we didn't get socialism https://www.nytimes.com/... Bluesky: @gritsforbreakfast : Where are all the complaints about socialism we hear re: Mamdani when the president starts using taxpayer money to buy stakes in companies without Congressional approval? This is literal, definitional socialism — state ownership of the means of production — so where's the right wing outcry? @suzysuzanne : The mob boss in the White House is collecting protection monies. — www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/t... Jeff E. Guy / @jeffyguy : Had Obama bought a stake in a company on behalf of the United States government, do you think conservatives would have been cool with that? Désirée Zamorano / @ladeziree : This NATIONALIZING of private companies is SO SOCIALIST — www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/t... Jen Taub / @jennifertaub.com : Golly gee. What will the Business Roundtable say about free markets now, when Donald Trump semi-nationalized a giant US company. He shook them down so the US could hold 10 percent. — www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/t... [image] Mastodon: Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis@mastodon.social : Intel is not *selling* equity to the US. It was going to get the money anyway from Biden. Trump demanded this *bribe* in return. Another #BrokenTimes headline parrots Trump's framing. — Intel Agrees to Sell U.S. a 10% Stake in Its Business https://www.nytimes.com/... BrianKrebs / @briankrebs@infosec.exchange : The Mafioso in Chief's shakedown of Corporate America continues. Gives a whole new meaning to the term hostile takeover. — https://www.nytimes.com/... [image] Forums: r/technology : The Trump administration's big Intel investment comes from already awarded grants r/Sacramento : Intel Agrees to Sell U.S. a 10% Stake in Its Business Slashdot : Intel's New Funding Came From Already-Awarded Grants. So What Happens Next?
Biden was wrong to subsidize the private sector with the Chips Act using our tax dollars. The counter to Biden is not to lean in and have govt own part of Intel. This will only lead to more government subsidies and less productivity. Intel will become a test case of what not to
The U.S. Govt. taking a 10% stake in $INTC is not only unconstitutional, it's a bad idea. Trump wasn't hired to run a hedge fund. This is a very bad precedent to set, as it moves our nation further away from free-market capitalism. Had Biden done this, Republicans would be livid.
If I had a dollar for every time one of my legislative colleagues objected to government “picking winners and losers,” I could go on a nice vacation. This is the essence of that. Where are the supposed free-market advocates? Where are the libertarians? This move by Trump
I am against the government demanding ("negotiating") 10% shares in private companies in exchange for nothing and am pretty sure nothing down this road ends well at all
So thinking more about the Intel deal: Between already distributed grants and the new equity, the gov looks to be putting $11.1B into the company. The original CHIPS grant was $7.86B, 41% smaller. Debating whether it's right to think of this as a low-key bailout.
Since the money came from the CHIPS Act, dictator-wannabe Trump stole taxpayer money and gave it all to Intel. This is straight up MAGA Maoism. Communism is alive and well in America. $INTC [image]
If your conception of socialism looks like national-corporatist seizures of equity justified retroactively by government grant funding and the CEO being a little bit too Chinese, you may want to take a moment to reflect on what socialism really means to you
President Trump is using taxpayer subsidies from the CHIPS & Science Act to grab ownership stakes in private companies like @intel. That's not what Congress voted for, and it does not represent a free market economy. It's a slide toward socialism — and every American should be [v…
@recurseparadox Congress can repeal the CHIPS act if they want to. (I think they shouldn't, but they could). But ‘Congress authorized grants so now we can nationalize you for free’ is nuts.
When presented with an option to expand state power, and by extension, his own, Trump has never and will never choose the wise path of constraint. It is the antithesis of American ideals and exactly what the founding fathers warned against.
I will let others debate the merits of the government taking 10% of Intel. (Ok, count me skeptical). But I am coming to the view it is probably legal. If Congress doesn't want more government ownership of the private sector, Congress is going to have to act. Essay forthcoming.
Today in “Would you idiots please stop trying to make me into a Trump supporter?” The federal government just paid $8.9B to take a 10% stake in Intel . Various people are posturing about “socialism” and Trump “seizing the means of production”. There's a lot for me to disagree
August 7: Trump demands Intel fire its' CEO, Lip-Bu Tan August 11: Trump meets with Lip-Bu Tan August 22: Trump announces purchase of 10% of Intel, and that “I negotiated this Deal with Lip-Bu Tan, the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@mquintos @scottlincicome It absolutely does. Once the govt has a stake in the company, it's going to be highly invested - literally - in protecting its interests.
Also, this is wild: by handing over the equity stake to the US govt, Intel no longer has to meet the CHIPS Act conditions (i.e., building US-based fabs) that, if met, would allow them to access the remaining billions in taxpayer funds?!?! Industrial policy FTW, again. [image]
@whyteciaran @intel Turns a grant into equity. If ever a bail out is needed, there's less to acquire for a controlling stake. If anything, the administration prides itself on business acumen. Thus, it wants ownership of businesses. Honestly though, this means (a) Intel gets all t…
@danielnewmanUV In my purely personal opinion, giving Chips Act funds should always have been contingent on guaranteed equal access for everyone. My beef with the whole thing was that this wasn't an iron clad requirement for everyone receiving funds. Similar with any taxpayer inv…
Asked a U.S. senators office if there's anything bf in the CHIPS Act that permits loans to be converted to equity. The response: “it does not explicitly forbid it.”
This is cost tax payers $9B and if Intel doesn't get its act together & pull a surprise move (a low prob. event), tax payers become bag holders. That's what Trump enabled. The real question now is how much money folks in the Trump admin got indirectly from Intel or Intel's
August 7, 2025: Trump calls for the resignation of Intel's CEO ("no other solution"), calls him “highly conflicted” 15 days later: Intel CEO agrees to give Trump and the US government 10% of the company, Trump calls him “highly respected” Totally normal stuff [image]
I'm not yet where other analysts are yet on a 100% Intel split between Foundry and Product Co. But what I CAN say is that Foundry, to succeed, must have an independent board who can make wafer and packaging allocations AND have a legal liability to keep foundry customer designs
P.S. If you don't see why the government becoming a large (the largest?) shareholder in Intel - and thus having a keen interest in its share price - is wildly different from (and worse than) a grant, contract, or tax break, I don't know what to tell you.
Funny to see some of the same people that cheered about ‘Chips Act Grants’ losing their minds about the government investing in $INTC. So giving the company money with largely no strings is ok? 🙄 But having the potential to get the money back by having non-voting shares
A terrible decision bad for almost everyone. Six quick reasons why: 1. Bad for Intel's long-term viability, as politics, not commercial considerations, increasingly drive its decisions. (SOEs are notoriously slow, bloated, & unproductive.) Foreign govts might also target it.
Here we go. US Government to purchase 9.9% of new issuance stock of @Intel $INTC. This is Chips Act money converted to equity. $2.2b already paid, +$8.9b means $11.1b total. 433.3m primary shares at $20.47/share. This will be a non-voting position. https://www.intc.com/... [image…
BIG NEWS: The United States of America now owns 10% of Intel, one of our great American technology companies. This historic agreement strengthens U.S. leadership in semiconductors, which will both grow our economy and help secure America's technological edge. Thanks to Intel CE…
Where are all the complaints about socialism we hear re: Mamdani when the president starts using taxpayer money to buy stakes in companies without Congressional approval? This is literal, definitional socialism — state ownership of the means of production — so where's the right …
Golly gee. What will the Business Roundtable say about free markets now, when Donald Trump semi-nationalized a giant US company. He shook them down so the US could hold 10 percent. — www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/t... [image]
Intel is not *selling* equity to the US. It was going to get the money anyway from Biden. Trump demanded this *bribe* in return. Another #BrokenTimes headline parrots Trump's framing. — Intel Agrees to Sell U.S. a 10% Stake in Its Business https://www.nytimes.com/...