🇺🇸 Trump Says Intel Will Hand Over 10% Stake to U.S. Government

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Intel shares jumped 6.4% to $25 after President Donald Trump told reporters the chip giant had agreed to transfer roughly 10% of its stock to the U.S. government.

Axios reports that no formal details of the agreement have yet been released. Intel declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Talks about the U.S. taking a stake in Intel first surfaced in August 2025. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said then that the government hoped to convert existing semiconductor grants — originally approved under Joe Biden’s administration — into equity. The U.S. would not receive voting rights or board control.

Bloomberg sources previously noted that a 10% stake would make Washington the largest single Intel shareholder.

The idea reportedly followed a meeting between Trump and Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger (Lip-Bu Tan in local press mentions). While Trump had earlier urged him to resign, after the meeting he called the CEO’s career “a wonderful story of success and rise.”

On August 19, Bloomberg also reported that SoftBank would buy $2 billion worth of Intel shares — about a 2% stake — making it the company’s fifth-largest shareholder.

This move could mark one of the boldest U.S. government interventions in Big Tech since the CHIPS Act — turning state subsidies into actual equity, while intensifying global competition over semiconductor supply chains.