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White House in Talks with Intel for 10% U.S. Government Stake
- nabla9 1y agoSocializing the means of production. Heh. State socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_socialism
- nabla9 1y ago>... advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition from the capitalist to the socialist mode of production or to a communist society.
- throw0101c 1y ago"Capitalism with MAGA characteristics." * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_charact...
- userlander 1y agoSo free market of them.
- bigyabai 1y agoIt's like loading more men onto a sinking ship. Gee, I wonder how this one ends.
- eska 1y agoWhile I’m pessimistic I do hope they turn their ship around. We don’t benefit from having less diversity in that market.
- ToDougie 1y agoAgreed. As another commenter pointed out, this is state socialism. But sometimes state socialism works. The other option is to let MBAs run Intel even further into the ground.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoDoes the government not hire people with MBAs?
- esseph 1y agoThe government doesn't pay the same in cash comp as other places people could go in the private sector. You'll get some people that are amazing and committed, but the rest are just kinda happy to be there. I wish govt comp was better and more competitive.
- peteey 1y ago>The other option is to let MBAs run Intel even further into the ground or worse, the government runs Intel into the ground while constantly taking more taxes to prop it back up. Incompetent private companies eventually dissolve. Uncle Sam can siphon your paycheck in perpetuity.
- bigyabai 1y agoBingo - the solution to this is already programmed into the free market. Intel's failure can't be turned back around, especially not 10 years after the first cracks started showing. It's not inherently wrong to want to prop up American chipmaking, but it is wrong to deny reality. No matter how much American scrip you put on the table, Intel's mistakes can't be undone faster than China can beat them.
- ToDougie 1y agoI agree with you. I shouldn't have framed this as a false dilemma, and I didn't put a whole lot of thought into my comment.
- j_w 1y ago
- beefnugs 1y agoWell, its like giving more money to the guys shoveling the money off the ship as it sinks. They will tip their hat or something as they continue shoveling.
- SimianSci 1y agoIm confused over the state of ideology within the republican party at this point. For years, government ownership and oversight has been demonized as the very thing that leads to inefficiencies and bad business practices. Now the same party has their figurehead looking to take partial government ownership of a business? Can someone explain this ideological whiplash?
- ToDougie 1y ago1. The Republican party of 10 years ago is not the Republican party of today. 2. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
- lotsofpulp 1y agoHow are they different?
- jkestner 1y agoNow they’re less subtle.
- throwaway29812 1y ago[dead]
- usefulcat 1y agoConsider that the current president campaigned on raising taxes, and was elected anyway. Perhaps a lot of R voters didn't have a problem with that because they somehow assumed that enacting a bunch of tariffs wouldn't result in higher prices for them.
- paulryanrogers 1y agoWhen did Trump ever campaign on raising taxes? Perhaps you mean the tariffs which he promised that other countries will pay for?
- TriangleEdge 1y agoI don't understand how the finances work here. Is the proposal that the US govt buys 10% of available stocks at some price from Intel to give them cash to operate? Why doesn't Intel just get some investors to do that? If Intel is no longer competitive from an investor standpoint, then what's the point? A quick ChatGPT search tells me Intel owns none of it's own stock, so I'm confused. It tells me a company can sell newly created stocks and dilute the value of the old stocks. I didn't know this was possible. Is this the proposed case?
- christkv 1y agoThey can issue new stock I imagine. I think this is to keep fab capacity of advanced nodes still producing in the us and to ensure the engineering talent is not scattered by a breakup of Intel
- nxobject 1y ago> engineering talent is not scattered by a breakup of Intel They'd be happy to nudge them from blue states (e.g. Hillsboro and Santa Clara) to red states.
- bcrl 1y agoMaintaining fab capacity requires product to run through that fab. Intel no longer has enough volume to maintain that on new advanced nodes (yeah, farming out CPUs to TSMC is super helpful on that front), and nobody wants to be a foundry customer of Intel given how badly they have failed to support those efforts over the past 20 years. I mean how badly are the fabs being run if they burned bridges with 3 different FPGA companies? The fabs need to be spun out of Intel and given a competent management team that knows how to run a foundry, build a new customer base and try to turn a profit in 10 years or so. Honestly, throwing more money towards Intel without breaking it up is just going to increase the scale of the losses at this point. The internal culture is so broken that the likelihood of turning things around is negligible.
- DragonStrength 1y agoFrom the subhead > Money earmarked for semiconductor company under Chips Act could be converted into equity They’re already getting federal money.
- nxobject 1y agoNote that this makes USG the largest stockholder – BlackRock and Vanguard (as institutions, not funds) are about ~9%.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- xnx 1y agoPreparations up for WWIII? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Plant_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Plant_Corporation
- raylad 1y agoWe need to be doing much, much more of this so that the country has ownership of substantial percentages of the critical infrastructure, including AI. That seems to be one of the only ways that the citizens in general will be able to share in the fruits of the technology, similarly to how Alaskan citizens get payments from petroleum.
- runako 1y agoPart of the reason we don't want this is because it creates an enormous government spoil, which is the decision to label a given company as part of the critical infrastructure of the country. For example: why Intel and not AMD? Does Micron make the cut? Seagate? What about the companies that make the inputs to the fabs? Telecom companies that run the Internet? Microsoft & Apple because business runs on their software? This is Too Big To Fail on steroids. > citizens in general will be able to share in the fruits of the technology, similarly to how Alaskan citizens get payments from petroleum The alternative approach is right there in your answer. Like in Alaska or Norway, tax the winners and apply the benefits to citizens. Sadly, we are going the other way both on taxation and benefits. The good news is we can at any time choose to live differently. Some might debate whether we could maintain our competitive business environment if Intel or Nvidia paid a tax rate comparable to yours, but perhaps it's worth a try?
- etempleton 1y agoI agree with your point, but to answer your first question, “why Intel and not AMD?” It is simply because Intel is the only US company, and one of only three chip manufacturers worldwide to even try to make cutting edge chips and that has an outside shot of doing so in the next decade or so. Domestic chip production is a national security interest. Frankly the US should be funding one or more companies to expand their fab capabilities.
- yareally 1y agoAMD is a US company: Founder: Jerry Sanders Headquarters: Santa Clara, California https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD
- janice1999 1y agoRelated: Pentagon becomes largest stakeholder ($400 million) in rare earths mine in California's Mojave Desert. https://www.metaltechnews.com/story/2025/07/16/tech-metals/dod-commits-billions-to-us-rare-earths/2370.html https://www.metaltechnews.com/story/2025/07/16/tech-metals/d...
- insane_dreamer 1y agoThis actually makes a lot of sense and something that China has been strategic about — ensuring access to important raw materials. It’s one of the biggest, if not the biggest, reasons Japan lost WW2
- IT4MD 1y ago[flagged]
- theturtle 1y agoIntel does not have to be eternal. There was a time before Intel.
- etempleton 1y agoWhat other US company has a shot of making a sub 5 nm chip in the next, oh, let’s say 20 years? Because of this, unfortunately, Intel is too big too fail.
- JonChesterfield 1y agoTSMC.
- etempleton 1y agoUS company. R&D is more important than the fabs. TSMC is under threat from China.
- equinox_nl 1y agoGee I wonder why the US gov showered TSMC in money to build a fab on US soil.
- etempleton 1y agoAgain, that is nice in the short term, but not for long term development if the worst happens between China and Taiwan.
- OnlineGladiator 1y agoWe'd still have the fab on US soil even if they went to war. I don't think China would invade the US over it.
- etempleton 1y ago
- joshka 1y agoI know everything is for sale, but how would Intel buying 10% of the US Government work? ;P
- orwin 1y ago... To me its a great idea, transitionally, until the shares are ready to be given to workers and ex-workers, but i'll admit that was definitely _not_ on my bingo card. Hopefully this work great and we'll see the US nationalize more instead of just giving money for nothing.
- tempodox 1y agoSo this is the official end of the “free market” then, with stamp and seal. Welcome tho the People’s Republic of the Soviet States of America.