Trump says US to take 10 percent stake in Intel

The United States government will take a 10 percent stake in Intel under an agreement with the struggling chipmaker, President Donald Trump has said, marking the latest extraordinary intervention in corporate affairs.

The US agreed to purchase a 9.9 percent stake in Intel for $8.9bn at a price of $20.47 a share, which is a discount of about $4 per share from Intel’s closing share price of $24.80 on Friday.

The government will buy the 433.3 million shares with funding from the $5.7bn in unpaid CHIPS Act grants and $3.2bn awarded to Intel for the Secure Enclave program.

Intel shares dropped 1.2 percent in extended trading on Friday.

Trump is set to meet CEO Lip-Bu Tan later on Friday, a White House official said.

The development follows a meeting between CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Trump earlier this month that was sparked by Trump’s demand for the Intel chief’s resignation over his ties to Chinese firms.

“He walked in wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10bn for the United States,” Trump said on Friday.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on X that the deal had been completed. “The United States of America now owns 10% of Intel,” he wrote, saying Tan had struck a deal “that’s fair to Intel and fair to the American People.”

While Trump did not provide details on the $10bn, the equity stake is about equal to the amount Intel is set to receive in CHIPS Act grants from the government to help fund the building of chip plants in the US.

Change in direction

The move marks a clear change of direction and also follows a $2bn capital injection from SoftBank Group in what was a major vote of confidence for the troubled US chipmaker in the middle of a turnaround.

Federal backing could give Intel more breathing room to revive its loss-making foundry business, analysts said, but it still suffers from a weak product roadmap and challenges in attracting customers to its new factories.

Trump, who met Tan on August 11, has taken an unprecedented approach to national security. But critics worry Trump’s actions create new categories of corporate risk.

The US president has pushed for multibillion-dollar government tie-ups in semiconductors and rare earths, such as a pay-for-play deal with Nvidia and an arrangement with rare-earth producer MP Materials to secure critical minerals.

Tan, who took the top job at Intel in March, has been tasked to turn around the US chipmaking icon, which recorded an annual loss of $18.8bn in 2024 — its first such loss since 1986. The company’s last fiscal year of positive adjusted free cash flow was 2021.