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Reports indicate that the United States has agreed to provide Ukraine with targeting intelligence for its long-range strikes against Russian energy infrastructure. For many months now, Ukraine has been waging a campaign to degrade Russia’s oil and natural gas infrastructure, depriving it of critical resources for its offensive in Ukraine as well as revenue from energy exports.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, which cites unnamed U.S. administration officials, and another report from Reuters, the new policy is being adopted ahead of a possible transfer of longer-range and harder-hitting weapons that can be used against the same kinds of targets, and potentially others deep in Russia.

The officials who spoke to the WSJ reportedly said that President Donald Trump had recently signed off on the sharing of intelligence for the Ukrainian strikes, although the caveat that only attacks on energy infrastructure are covered is significant. Targeting data will be provided to Kyiv by U.S. intelligence agencies as well as the Pentagon. Meanwhile, U.S. officials are said to be pushing NATO allies to do the same.

This would be the first time, officially at least, that the Trump administration provides Ukraine with this kind of intelligence for its long-range strikes.

In the meantime, Ukraine has been repeatedly using long-range one-way attack drones, and to a lesser degree, cruise missiles of its own design, to hit Russian refineries, pipelines, power stations, and related infrastructure far beyond the front lines.

Videos showing purported Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries in March 2024, involving long-range one-way attack drones:

The hope is that the new U.S.-supplied intelligence will make these raids more destructive.

At the same time, a Ukrainian delegation has arrived in Washington this week to work on a new agreement with the Trump administration that would see Kyiv sharing its drone technology with the United States, in exchange for a so-far undecided compensation, perhaps in the form of additional arms.

As to what might come next in terms of longer-range and more powerful weapons, should the United States agree to provide them, there is already much speculation that the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile might be included. The prospect of Ukraine getting its hands on the Tomahawk, which can strike targets at a range of almost 1,000 miles, carrying a 1,000-pound unitary warhead, has already caused some alarm among pro-Kremlin military bloggers, as seen in the video below.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed that he had requested Tomahawks from Trump, after which U.S. Vice President JD Vance said that the United States was considering Ukraine’s request.

However, there is no guarantee that the Tomahawk transfer to Ukraine will be approved. As it stands, these highly accurate — and expensive — cruise missiles have only ever been exported to a handful of countries, and only in ship- and submarine-launched form.

The same officials explained that the Tomahawk was just one option being discussed, with others including the Barracuda, from Anduril. This is described by the company as an “expendable autonomous air vehicle,” but is essentially a low-cost, highly modular, air-breathing precision standoff munition. The Barracuda-500, for example, has a maximum range of 500 miles and carries a payload of up to 100 pounds. Currently, it is exclusively for air-launched applications, but it is built to be adapted to ground launch as well.

“Other American-made ground- and air-launched missiles that have ranges of around 500 miles” are also being considered, the officials said.

Washington has already approved the transfer to Ukraine of thousands of Extended Range Attack Munitions (ERAM). These are another new and relatively low-cost standoff missile, although it’s unclear whether Kyiv will be able to use the new weapon to strike targets deep within Russia. Previously, unnamed U.S. officials suggested that such targets are off-limits for American-made weapons, at least for the U.S.-donated Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

The ERAMs, which have a range between 150-280 miles and are stated to be air-launched, at least initially, may well have already begun to arrive in Ukraine. The first lot of 840 ERAMs is split between two designs, produced by CoAspire and Zone 5 Technologies, respectively. These are to be delivered by the end of October 2026.

As for the aforementioned ATACMS, Trump halted new deliveries of this ballistic missile, first provided to Ukraine under the Biden administration. There are also now tight controls on Ukrainian ATACMS use, with each strike requiring approval from Washington. At least some requests to use them against targets in Russia have been turned down, although the weapon has seen notable use in the Kursk region, adjacent to the Ukrainian border.

Even without the delivery of additional types of U.S.-made long-range missiles and the approval to use them against targets deep in Russia, the additional intelligence will be very useful to Ukraine. Pinpointing the weakest links in Russia’s energy infrastructure is especially critical if Ukraine continues to rely on lower yield, less capable weapons, like one-way attack drones, instead of advanced cruise missiles that pack heavy warheads.

There remains the possibility that long-range weapons might be provided by Ukraine’s non-U.S. allies.

Germany, for example, has been consistently linked with a transfer of Taurus air-launched cruise missiles to Ukraine, although this has, so far, been turned down by the government in Berlin. Nevertheless, German military officials have supported the idea of sending Kyiv weapons of this kind.

“Ukraine needs assistance in three key areas of confronting Russian aggression: air defenses, the ability to hold the front line, and the ability to strike deep into Russia,” explained Brig. Gen. Joachim Kaschke, responsible for German military aid to Ukraine. “When the Ukrainian defenders are facing a numerically superior adversary, they have to take the fight beyond the front lines,” he added.

Previously, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy have provided Ukraine with Storm Shadow and the similair SCALP-EG air-launched cruise missiles, which have seen extensive use.

Kyiv has used a wide variety of homegrown long-range one-way attack drones to attack Russian energy infrastructure.

It also has available the Long Neptune, an extended-range version of the land-attack version of the Neptune anti-ship missile. Ukraine famously used Neptune missiles to sink the Russian Navy’s Slava class cruiser Moskva in 2022 and reportedly began developing a new land-attack version in 2023. The numbers of these weapons is said to be very limited though.

A first official look at Ukraine’s other operational land attack cruise missile; the Long Neptune.

The Neptune LACM reportedly has a range of roughly 1000km, and has already seen combat this year. pic.twitter.com/cPHJ5sjZlu

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) August 25, 2025

Zelensky has said the range of the Long Neptune is in the region of 620 miles and that it has already been tested in combat.

More relevant for these kinds of strikes is the locally produced Flamingo ground-launched long-range cruise missile, unveiled in August. This weapon has a reported range of 1,864 miles and a powerful 2,535-pound warhead, making it a much farther-reaching and more destructive weapon than any missile or one-way-attack drone available to Ukraine now. Just as significantly, Ukraine is hoping to ramp up manufacturing capacity to build seven Flamingos every day by October of this year, though there are questions about how realistic any expanded production goals might be.

While there have been questions about the survivability of one-way attack drones and the very large and relatively crude Flamingo cruise missile, at the very least, they provide an additional headache for Russia’s hard-pressed air defenses, and it’s clear that a significant proportion of these attacks result in damage to energy infrastructure.

Remarkably clear footage of a Ukrainian attack drone flying untouched through Russian ground fire over Krasnodar Krai this morning, eventually slamming directly into Rosneft’s Tuapse refinery and detonating. pic.twitter.com/7p2U7l53Nr

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) July 22, 2024

Interestingly, it appears that Russia has been stepping up its own attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in recent weeks. This may well signal the start of a new winter offensive, repeating Russian tactics of previous years.

Russia is intensifying its strike campaign against Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Footage below shows strikes on 330kV & 110kV electrical substations in the town of Slavutych, Kyiv Oblast, northern Ukraine.

In recent time, the Russians carried out similar attacks on energy… pic.twitter.com/ZEhl8hyoQg

— Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (@Archer83Able) October 2, 2025

The new intelligence-sharing policy and the possibility of new long-range missiles being cleared for transfer to Kyiv appear to indicate a changing approach from the Trump administration.

After he took office in January, Trump made efforts to broker a ceasefire. However, despite offering Russian President Vladimir Putin economic and commercial incentives, this hasn’t gained traction, and a series of meetings between Russian and U.S. leaders have not had any success.

Now, Trump is taking a new and harder line with Putin.

Last week, Trump took to social media to declare, for the first time, that he considers it possible that Ukraine retakes all of its territory that was lost to Russia. He also called upon NATO allies in Europe to shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter alliance airspace.

It seems that, with an eye on the battlefield situation, where Russia continues to make only slow progress, Trump is now turning up the heat on Putin, something that we have discussed in detail in the past.

Of course, approving the delivery of additional long-range weapons would be an even bolder action.

Already, Kremlin officials are talking about the possibility of Tomahawks arriving in Ukraine.

“The question remains: Who can launch these missiles, even if they end up on Kyiv regime territory?” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this week. “Can only Ukrainians launch them, or will the American military do so? Who is assigning the targeting to these missiles? This requires a very thorough analysis.”

Whatever decision Washington makes on the long-range weapons, the expanded intelligence-sharing with Kyiv underscores the fact that the United States is willing to provide more support for Ukraine, including its direct strikes deep inside Russia aimed at Moscow’s prized energy production capabilities. It may well also suggest that Trump sees this as the next step in pressuring Russia to sit at the negotiation table.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Shares of Intel (INTC 5.62%) are moving higher on Friday, up 5.5% as of 12:50 p.m. ET. The jump comes as the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.56%) was up 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 0.34%) was flat.

The chipmaker’s stock is gaining after The Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump is considering a tariff on semiconductor companies that rely too heavily on foreign manufacturers.

New tariffs could be coming soon

The Journal reported this morning that President Trump is considering a tariff on chipmakers that manufacture more chips overseas than in the U.S. If companies don’t maintain at least a 1-to-1 ratio of chips fabricated domestically to internationally, they could soon face a stiff tariff.

The move is part of the Trump administration’s effort to boost domestic chip manufacturing, a cornerstone of the administration’s national security strategy, as well as its broader efforts to reshore American manufacturing.

Image source: Getty Images.

The news comes just a month after the administration reached an agreement that makes the federal government a significant shareholder in Intel, with a roughly 10% stake in the ailing chipmaker.

Intel has its work cut out for it

The federal government isn’t the only one investing in Intel. Just last week, Nvidia announced it would invest $5 billion and partner with Intel to enhance some of its artificial intelligence (AI) data center products. These are good partners to have, but Intel has much further to go in its turnaround efforts.

The dominant U.S. chipmaker for years, the company fell behind in the age of generative AI. Its top and bottom lines have taken a severe beating, and the company has gone through significant restructuring and major layoffs in an attempt to stabilize its balance sheet.

I do think that Intel is on the right track, however. For investors comfortable with risk, Intel is a good pick.

Tuesday wasn’t one of the more memorable days on the stock exchange for U.S. chip titan Intel (INTC 1.98%). There was little fresh news affecting the company directly, still it managed to drift 2% higher in price across the trading session. Lingering positive sentiment related to the recently announced Nvidia buy-in, in addition to recent analyst moves, played a role in this.

At any rate Intel beat the S&P 500 index, which fell by 0.6% Tuesday.

Chipping away

To a degree, investors are still reacting to the blockbuster news from the end of last week that Nvidia will invest a meaty $5 billion in Intel’s equity, and the two chip giants will collaborate on certain projects. More recently, on Monday a European bank upgraded its recommendation on the stock.

Image source: Getty Images.

Mind you, the analyst didn’t exactly join the bull stampede on Intel; still any upgrade is reason for renewed optimism. That pundit, Hans Engel of Austrian lender Erste Group, changed his recommendation to hold from his previous sell. It wasn’t immediately clear what price target Engel set.

According to reports, the analyst’s modification is due to what he considers to be progress in the company’s transformation program. He wrote in his Intel update that the chipmaker has successfully increased production speed, which should have positive knock-on effects with key fundamentals.

Potential flip into the black?

Speaking of Nvidia, Engel wrote that the company and fellow state-of-the-art chip manufacturer Broadcom are currently testing Intel’s production platform, which bodes well for its future. Also, in his view, if Intel can continue roping in new clients for its contract manufacturing business, the company has a shot at returning to profitability.

Part of Intel‘s (INTC -2.82%) turnaround strategy, now under CEO Lip-Bu Tan and previously under former CEO Pat Gelsinger, is to exit noncore businesses and refocus on what the company does best. Intel has exited the memory chip business, wound down its Ethernet switch business, abandoned its Bitcoin mining chips, and scuttled a wide variety of smaller business lines. It has also spun off its self-driving unit Mobileye and sold a majority stake in Altera, raising cash in both cases.

Intel likely isn’t done simplifying its operations. Tan has initiated significant layoffs, and a new policy of “no more blank checks” will lead to the company being far more selective about which investments it chooses to make.

Anything outside of PC central processing units (CPUs), server CPUs, and manufacturing could very well get the axe, and even the manufacturing business isn’t safe if it can’t secure external customers.

Last week, Intel signed an unexpected deal with rival Nvidia to produce custom PC and data center CPUs that include Nvidia technology. In the PC business, this means that Intel CPUs with integrated Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) are on their way. The big question: What does this mean for Intel’s own graphics business?

Image source: Getty Images.

An unclear future

Intel sells CPUs with its own integrated graphics technology, and it also broke into the discrete graphics card market a few years ago with its Arc line of GPUs. The first generation of Intel’s Arc GPUs was plagued with software issues, while the second generation has garnered positive reviews. Intel focused on the mid-range portion of the market, offering a compelling alternative to Nvidia and AMD graphics cards.

Unfortunately for Intel, it hasn’t gained any meaningful share of the discrete graphics card market. In the first quarter, Intel’s GPU unit share rounded down to 0%, according to Jon Peddie Research. Nvidia dominates the market, and PC gamers may still be reluctant to try an Intel GPU due to the history of software issues.

The deal with Nvidia doesn’t cover discrete graphics cards, but partnering with a competitor raises questions about how serious Intel is about staying in the discrete graphics card market. It also raises questions about whether it will continue to invest in its own graphics technology for its CPUs.

Once CPUs with Nvidia graphics start shipping, it’s unclear whether Intel will continue to invest in its in-house graphics. An Intel CPU with Nvidia graphics should be an appealing product, but it could reduce demand for Intel’s non-Nvidia CPUs. Intel could also end up scrapping its discrete graphics card business, given that its main competitor is now a partner.

Not without risks

The deal with Nvidia makes a lot of sense for Intel. The company has lost considerable PC CPU market share to AMD, so upping its graphics performance with Nvidia’s GPUs should help Intel strengthen its position, particularly in the laptop market.

If Intel ends up pulling back on its own graphics technology, that move would reduce costs at the expense of the company becoming dependent on Nvidia, which is buying a $5 billion stake in Intel as part of the deal, so this appears to be a long-term arrangement. Even so, outsourcing graphics entirely could come back to bite Intel down the road.

Despite the deal with Nvidia, Intel may choose to keep plugging away in discrete graphics cards and to keep developing its own graphics technology. But with the company eyeing noncore businesses to dump, graphics could very well be next.

Intel (INTC -2.59%) just had one of its best days in years, with its stock price surging after Nvidia (NVDA 3.70%) revealed it would take a $5 billion stake in the chipmaker and partner on new products. The stock price is now up about 50% on the year.

While the market loved the deal, it is worth taking a closer look at what this deal really means for Intel and whether this is a true turning point or just a short-term jolt.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why Nvidia is partnering with Intel

The collaboration between Nvidia and Intel appears largely aimed at rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 1.73%). AMD’s central processing units (CPUs) have been steadily taking share from Intel in both the data center and computer segments. Meanwhile, the company has started to fuse its graphics processing units (GPUs) and CPUs together, which is a direct challenge to Nvidia. However, thus far, most of its success in this area has been in gaming and computers and not in artificial intelligence (AI).

Nonetheless, Nvidia does not appear content to just dominate the massive data center market, and with this collaboration, it will look to address the laptop market as well. It also looks to stave off any advantages that AMD may gain in the data center market with a combined GPU/CPU chip, especially as the market moves more toward inference.

As such, the companies will look to combine Intel CPUs with Nvidia GPUs connected by NVLink, giving laptop buyers an integrated option that is much more powerful. Intel will also build custom x86 CPUs for Nvidia’s rack-scale servers, making Nvidia a major customer for its chips. That is a big win for Intel, given how much share it has lost to AMD in the data center over the past five years. For Nvidia, this is about making sure AMD doesn’t gain too much ground with its own combined CPU/GPU solutions.

While the $5 billion investment is a drop in the bucket for Nvidia, it does matter for Intel. Intel has been burning through cash trying to scale its foundry business and build new fabs in the U.S. and Europe. Its foundry operating losses were $3.2 billion last quarter, worse than a year ago.

The Nvidia capital injection, along with $9 billion from the U.S. government and $2 billion from SoftBank, gives Intel a $16 billion war chest to keep investing without wrecking its balance sheet. It also signals to the market that Nvidia sees Intel as too important to fail. The company may be a competitor in some markets, but Nvidia apparently wants a strong CPU partner to keep AMD from getting too much leverage in the CPU market.

Is Intel’s stock a buy?

Despite the stock’s huge jump, there are still plenty of risks with the Intel story. Intel’s core PC business remains soft, with client computing revenue down 3% year over year last quarter. Its data center and AI segment revenue grew just 4%, which was far behind the booming numbers from Nvidia and even AMD.

And while the company says its product roadmaps remain on track, its recent history is not good, with the company often missing deadlines or even scrapping products. In addition, Nvidia said that it is not giving up on the CPUs it has been developing with Arm Holdings.

Intel’s money-losing foundry business is also an issue, and it does not sound like Nvidia is riding to the rescue with regard to this part of its business. Nvidia has made clear that it is not moving away from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing as its primary manufacturing partner. Intel doesn’t have the expertise or scale of TSMC, so Nvidia is still very reliant on the foundry leader.

While the partnership with Nvidia is a positive, it doesn’t solve all of Intel’s problems. It still needs to prove it can execute and that all the money it’s pouring into its foundry business will pay off. Gaining Nvidia as a foundry customer likely would have been a bigger deal, but that was not the case.

Meanwhile, after the jump in its stock price this year, the stock is no longer in the bargain bin. As such, I wouldn’t chase the rally.

Intel (INTC -3.22%) has a new and powerful ally. On Thursday, Nvidia (NVDA 0.34%) said it will invest $5 billion in Intel and codevelop multiple generations of custom products, spanning data centers and PCs. Intel shares jumped more than 20% on the news, as investors digested what a tie-up with the leader in artificial intelligence (AI) computing could mean for the company’s multiyear turnaround.

The semiconductor veteran designs and manufactures CPUs and runs a contract manufacturing business. In recent years, Intel has wrestled with product delays, shrinking margins, and heavy losses in its foundry segment. The Nvidia partnership gives Intel access to new design opportunities and a stronger place in AI-centric systems. Whether that translates into durable earnings power is the question investors care about.

Image source: Getty Images.

A vote of confidence that counts

Nvidia’s announcement laid out two concrete planks. First, Intel will design Nvidia-custom x86 CPUs that Nvidia will integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms. Second, Intel will build x86 system-on-chips for PCs that integrate Nvidia RTX GPU chiplets.

As part of the collaboration, Nvidia will invest $5 billion in Intel common stock at $23.28 per share, subject to regulatory approvals.

“This historic collaboration,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said, ties Nvidia’s AI stack to Intel’s vast x86 ecosystem. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan framed it as confidence in Intel’s roadmap and manufacturing — and a path to “new breakthroughs for the industry.”

The market reaction was swift. Intel rose more than 20% intraday, while Nvidia ticked higher as well. The move arrives as Intel trims costs, resets capital spending, and narrows its focus. Notably, the companies did not commit to shifting Nvidia’s GPU manufacturing to Intel’s fabs; investors should view this as a design and platform collaboration plus equity capital — not a wholesale manufacturing shift.

Recent results show a company still in repair

Intel’s business results have been underwhelming. Its second-quarter revenue was $12.9 billion, roughly flat year over year. Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) gross margin declined to 27.5%, and GAAP earnings per share was a loss of $0.67, pressured by $1.9 billion of restructuring charges and other one-time items. Non-GAAP earnings per share were a loss of $0.10.

For the third quarter, Intel guided revenue to $12.6 billion to $13.6 billion and non-GAAP earnings per share of about $0.00 at the midpoint.

There were signs of operational progress and AI relevance. Data center and AI revenue rose 4% year over year to $3.9 billion, and Intel highlighted that its Xeon 6776P is the host CPU in Nvidia’s latest DGX B300 systems.

Still, the overall picture remains mixed, with margins depressed and the foundry business a drag as Intel pares projects and slows certain builds to defend returns.

“We are laser-focused on strengthening our core product portfolio and our AI roadmap,” Tan said in the quarterly release — a reminder that the turnaround is still very much underway.

What’s next?

Viewed through an investor lens, two things matter: earnings power and price. With trailing-12-month revenue around low-$50 billion and losses on the bottom line, price-to-earnings is not useful; price-to-sales in the mid-2s is a better quick gauge for now. That leaves the stock leaning on a credible path back to healthier gross margins and operating income.

The Nvidia deal may help by anchoring Intel CPUs inside Nvidia’s AI platforms, creating a new PC silicon vector with integrated RTX chiplets, and signaling third-party confidence that can attract talent and customers. But execution — on both products and cost discipline — still has to show up in the numbers.

Of course, Nvidia’s involvement doesn’t guarantee success. Foundry losses and prior write-downs underscore how costly it is to rebuild manufacturing relevance.

Additionally, investors shouldn’t forget Intel’s challenges. Its guidance implies only modest sequential improvement, and Intel must prove it can expand gross margin back toward a level that supports sustainable free cash flow.

Finally, competition is intense, with Advanced Micro Devices growing in servers and client CPUs even before layering in its own AI accelerators. And while the partnership is meaningful, it does not remove the need for Intel to hit product and manufacturing milestones over the next several quarters.

But Nvidia’s stake and the co-development roadmap arguably do increase the odds that Intel’s turnaround gains traction. The collaboration creates real product hooks and stronger incentives for both sides to make the designs successful. If Intel converts these tailwinds into margin recovery and stable growth over time, today’s valuation could look reasonable for investors with patience.

Shares of Intel (INTC 22.81%) are flying this week, up 27% as of market close on Thursday. The jump comes as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 gained 0.7% and 1.5%, respectively.

The chipmaker’s stock exploded this week after Nvidia announced a $5 billion investment and “multigeneration” partnership agreement with Intel.

Nvidia bets on Intel

On Thursday, Nvidia said it is investing $5 billion into the struggling company at a purchase price of $23.28 a share. Under the partnership terms, Intel will make custom CPUs that Nvidia will use in its AI data center platforms. Intel will also make use of Nvidia’s technology to enhance its PC offerings.

Intel’s CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, said the move will help the company in its turnaround efforts, allowing it to “go to market to win.” A key question remains on what the deal will mean for Intel’s foundry business. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang told investors that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will remain its primary fabricator. However, it’s possible that Nvidia could still make use of Intel’s manufacturing capabilities for certain products.

Image source: Getty Images.

Nvidia’s stake could make the difference for Intel

This is a critical time for Intel. The dominant U.S. chipmaker for years, the company fell behind in the age of generative AI. Its top and bottom lines have taken a severe beating, and the company has gone through significant restructuring and major layoffs in an attempt to stabilize its balance sheet.

While this investment is certainly encouraging, there are still some questions, especially around Intel’s manufacturing. This could be a major step in Intel’s revival, or it could be an early step in Intel being stripped for parts. One Wall Street manager said the company could become “a shadow of its former self” with a fate similar to that of Xerox.

I’m cautiously optimistic. For investors comfortable with risk, Intel is a good pick.

Sept. 18 (UPI) — Shares of Intel rose 33% Thursday after NVIDIA announced a $5 billion investment in the company to make data center and PC chips.

NVIDIA is investing its stake at a price of $23.28 a share, a press release said. Intel shares jumped 33% to around $33 a share in premarket trading, CNBC reported.

The collaboration deal says that Intel will build custom NVIDIA CPUs for data centers that the company will integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms and sell.

For PCs, Intel will build and sell x86 system-on-chips that integrate NVIDIA RTX GPU chiplets. These new x86 RTX SOCs will power a wide range of PCs, a press release said.

NVIDIA will invest $5 billion in Intel’s common stock at a purchase price of $23.28 per share, which will need regulatory approval.

“At the heart of this reinvention is NVIDIA’s CUDA architecture,” NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement. “This historic collaboration tightly couples NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem – a fusion of two world-class platforms. Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing.”

Intel, which has struggled recently, last month got a boost from a 10% investment from the federal government. Earlier this year, its shares hit the lowest in more than 10 years.

“Intel’s x86 architecture has been foundational to modern computing for decades, and we are innovating across our portfolio to enable the workloads of the future,” Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel, said in a statement. “Intel’s leading data center and client computing platforms, combined with our process technology, manufacturing and advanced packaging capabilities, will complement NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing leadership to enable new breakthroughs for the industry.”

Huang and Tan will hold a press conference about the deal at 1 p.m. EDT Thursday.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of U.S. damage to Iranian nuclear sites angered President Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Hegseth also fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, chief of the Navy Reserve, and Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversees Naval Special Warfare Command, another U.S. official said.

No reasons were given for their firings, the latest in a series of steps targeting military leaders, intelligence officials and other perceived critics of Trump, who has demanded loyalty across the government. The administration also stripped security clearances this week from additional current and former national security officials.

Taken together, the moves could chill dissent and send a signal against reaching conclusions at odds with Trump’s interests.

Agency’s assessment contradicted Trump

Kruse’s firing comes two months after details of a preliminary assessment of U.S. airstrikes against Iran leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back only a few months by the military bombardment, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The president, who had pronounced the Iranian program “completely and fully obliterated,” rejected the report. His oft-repeated criticism of the DIA analysis built on his long-running distrust of intelligence assessments, including one published in 2017 that said Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence — which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA — has been declassifying years-old documents meant to cast doubt on those previous findings, which have been endorsed by bipartisan congressional committees.

After the June strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of the facilities.

“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was a historically successful attack,” Hegseth said at a news conference at the time.

Democrats raise concerns

While the Pentagon has offered no details on the firings, Democrats in Congress have raised alarm over the precedent that Kruse’s ouster sets for the intelligence community.

“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the administration to show why Kruse was fired, or “otherwise, we can only assume that this is another politically motivated decision intended to create an atmosphere of fear” within the intelligence community.

Trump has a history of removing government officials whose data and analysis he disagrees with. Earlier this month, after a lousy jobs report, he fired the official in charge of the data. His administration also has stopped posting reports on climate change, canceled studies on vaccine access and removed data on gender identity from government sites.

Other military and intelligence changes

The new firings culminate a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and new shake-ups to military leadership.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced this week that it would slash its staff and budget and revoked more security clearances, a tactic the administration uses against those it sees as foes. The Pentagon also said the Air Force’s top uniformed officer, Gen. David Allvin, planned to retire two years early.

Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation.

The administration has fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Navy’s top officer, the Air Force’s second-highest-ranking officer and the top lawyers for three military service branches.

In April, Hegseth dismissed Gen. Tim Haugh as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, who was a senior official at NATO.

No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of the firings, though some of the officers were believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump has demanded government agencies purge DEI efforts.

The ousters of Kruse, Lacore and Sands were reported earlier by the Washington Post.

Toropin, Jalonick and Price write for the Associated Press.

In the seven months since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Wall Street’s major stock indexes have been taken on quite the ride.

The president’s unveiling of his tariff and trade policy on April 2 spawned the fifth-biggest two-day percentage decline in the benchmark S&P 500 (^GSPC 1.52%) in 75 years, as well as hurled the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 1.88%) into a full-fledged (but ultimately short-lived) bear market.

This sharp downturn was followed by Donald Trump announcing a 90-day pause on higher “reciprocal tariff rates” on April 9. The S&P 500, Nasdaq Composite, and ageless Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 1.89%) responded by logging their largest single-session point increases in history with this announcement and have been in a seemingly unstoppable rally ever since.

President Trump delivering his State of the Union address. Image source: Official White House Photo.

But tariffs represent just one of the ways the Trump administration can potentially influence equities on Wall Street.

According to reports and recent statements made by a member of Trump’s cabinet, the federal government is pondering equity stakes in some of the world’s leading semiconductor companies, including Intel (INTC 5.64%), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM 2.58%) (commonly known as “TSMC”), Micron Technology (MU 1.82%), and Samsung Electronics (SSNL.F 9.01%). While the rationale behind this idea might be intriguing on paper, it runs the risk of setting a dangerous precedent on Wall Street.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick proposes converting CHIPS Act grants into equity

Before diving further into the proposed details, some background is sorely needed.

Three years ago, in August 2022, President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act (commonly known as the “CHIPS Act”) into law. This law authorizes grants from the federal government to encourage the domestic manufacture of semiconductor chips, as well as to promote biotechnology and clean-energy technology innovation within the U.S. More than $52 billion was set aside by the CHIPS Act to support the construction and/or expansion of chip fabrication plants in the U.S., as well as advanced semiconductor research and development.

During President Trump’s State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in March, he referred to the CHIPS Act as a “horrible, horrible thing,” and encouraged lawmakers at the time to defund the program. But his tune may have changed, courtesy of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Lutnick laid out something of a take-it-or-leave-it style proposal that would convert CHIPS Act grants into stock equity for the federal government. Said Lutnick:

The Biden administration literally was giving Intel for free, and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies just giving them money for free. Donald Trump turns that into saying, “Hey, we want equity for the money. If we’re going to give you money, we want a piece of the action.”

Lutnick clarified his statements by noting that these equity stakes wouldn’t provide the U.S. government with any voting power in these businesses. Instead, it would be all about the American people getting a stake in the businesses U.S. funds are supporting.

Trump has reportedly favored the idea of the U.S. government being given equity stakes in exchange for CHIPS Act funds, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-VT) also voicing his support for such a move. “Taxpayers should not be providing billons of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return,” extolled Sanders.

If this proposal were to move forward, the Trump administration would take up to a 10% stake in Intel, valued at roughly $10.9 billion. Multibillion-dollar stakes would also be made in TSMC, Micron, and Samsung.

Image source: Getty Images.

Government ownership of stocks can be a slippery slope

Though there’s a logical argument to be found in the Trump administration’s proposal to transform these grants into equity stakes, there are also reasons for concern.

Looking to the past as a predictor of the future, there have been previous instances where the federal government took equity stakes in public companies. However, these prior occurrences correlate with periods of historic economic instability.

For instance, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) gave the federal government the green light to take equity stakes in struggling financial institutions during the Great Recession. Additionally, select airline companies issued stock warrants to the U.S. Treasury during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 as partial compensation for the financial assistance they received. Equity stakes on a for-profit basis, as proposed by Lutnick, would be a new and potentially dangerous precedent.

Although the Commerce Secretary told viewers these would be nonvoting equity stakes, the Trump administration nevertheless passes the laws and fiscal policy that can directly impact chip manufacturers. While the federal government might not be voting on executive compensation packages, it’ll have a direct and undeniable influence on the stock(s) it owns. This is effectively the same debate of whether members of Congress should be able to own individual stocks while passing laws that directly impact said stocks… just taken to another level.

For example, a solid argument can be made that President Donald Trump’s tariff and trade policy is far more powerful than a 10% voting share in Intel, or a single-digit percentage voting share in TSMC, Micron, or Samsung. Pardon the necessary pun, but Trump has previously used chip companies, including Nvidia, as bargaining chips to negotiate trade deals. There would be nothing to stop the president or members of his administration from using these bargaining tools to influence corporate strategy and decision-making.

Furthermore, adjusting the funding strategy for the CHIPS Act three years after its passage might encourage chip fabricators to keep their distance from the U.S. government. While subsidies of $6.6 billion, $6.2 billion, and $4.75 billion were awarded to TSMC, Micron, and Samsung, respectively, in 2024, none of these three companies necessarily need this funding to build/expand their chip fabrication presence on U.S. soil. If they had known that an equity stipulation was a possibility, they may not have agreed to a dime in funding.

Even Intel, which has struggled mightily under the weight of increasing competition and the high costs of organically building out its foundry division, may not have opted for government funding if it would have resulted in a forced equity stake. Over the trailing-12-month period, Intel has generated more than $10 billion in cash flow from its operations.

Though discussions are ongoing and nothing is set in stone, as of this writing in the late evening of Aug. 20, the Donald Trump administration potentially becoming shareholders of some of Wall Street’s leading semiconductor stocks likely wouldn’t be a development to cheer.

Aug. 22 (UPI) — The United States government will own a 10% share of common stock in U.S. chipmaker Intel in exchange for $11 billion in already-promised federal funding.

President Donald Trump and Intel officials announced they reached an agreement on the federal stake in the California tech firm on Friday.

“It is my great honor to report that the United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of Intel,” Trump said Friday in a Truth Social post.

He called Intel a “great American company that has an even more incredible future” and said the nation paid nothing to obtain Intel common shares valued at about $11 billion.

“This is a great deal for America and also a great deal for Intel,” Trump said. “Building leading-edge semiconductors and chips, which is what Intel does, is fundamental to the future of our nation.”

Although Trump said the federal government would not pay to obtain the 10% stake in Intel, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based tech firm indicated it will receive about $11 billion for the common stock.

The federal government will provide $5.7 billion in existing grant funds that were yet to be paid after the Biden administration previously allocated them through the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, Intel announced on Friday.

Intel also will receive $3.2 billion that had been awarded to it via the Secure Enclave program.

Intel already received $2.2 billion in federal in CHIPS grants, making the total federal investment in it $11.1 billion.

“As the only semiconductor company that does leading-edge R&D and manufacturing in the U.S., Intel is deeply committed to ensure the world’s most advanced technologies are American-made,” Tan said.

“President Trump’s focus on U.S. chip manufacturing is driving historic investments in a vital industry that is integral to the country’s economic and national security,” he added.

“We are grateful for the confidence the president and the administration have placed in Intel,” Tan continued, “and we look forward to working to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership.”

Trump earlier this week said he wanted the federal government to get a 10% stake in Intel in exchange for the money already earmarked for the tech firm.

The funds already were committed by the Biden administration, so the stake did not cost any additional money, Treasury Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Tuesday.

Intel is building a semiconductor complex in Ohio, which would help to lessen the nation’s reliance on chips produced in Taiwan and other locales.

The new Intel manufacturing facilities are scheduled to start opening in 2030 at a location near Columbus, Ohio.

Intel (INTC 5.64%) stock is leaping higher in Friday’s trading thanks to a pair of bullish catalysts. The semiconductor company’s share price gained 5.5% in a day of trading that saw the S&P 500 jump 1.5% and the Nasdaq Composite surge 1.8%.

Intel’s valuation climbed today thanks to a speech from Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell that increased hopes among investors for an interest rate cut at the central bank’s meeting next month. The stock also got a boost from a report suggesting that the Trump administration was on the verge of announcing that it was on track to acquire a 10% stake in the company.

Image source: Getty Images.

Interest rate news boosted Intel stock today

Powell gave a speech this morning that has restored market confidence in a September interest rate cut and the potential for another rate cut later in the year. The Fed has kept rates relatively high in order to combat inflation, but investors have been hoping that the central bank will deliver cuts and create a stronger environment for stocks and other assets.

While Powell said that inflation continued to present challenges, he indicated that weakness in the U.S. economy was looking like the bigger risk factor. His comments seemed to indicate that the Fed is leaning toward cutting rates next month, and they helped power gains for Intel and many other tech stocks today.

Intel also rose thanks to major U.S. investment news

Bloomberg published a report today stating that President Donald Trump was on track to announce that the U.S. government would be taking a nearly 10% equity position in Intel. The official announcement wound up arriving after the market closed today, but Trump did confirm that he had met with CEO Lip-bu Tan and that the U.S. will be taking a 10% stake in Intel.

The development will allow Intel to receive funding that had been apportioned to it through the CHIPS Act. It also opens the door for additional government support as artificial intelligence (AI) chip designs and chip fabrication technologies become increasingly important to the economy and national security.

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump on Friday announced the U.S. government has secured a 10% stake in struggling Silicon Valley pioneer Intel in a deal that was completed just a couple weeks after he was depicting the company’s CEO as a conflicted leader unfit for the job.

“The United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future,” Trump wrote in a post.

The U.S. government is getting the stake through the conversion of $11.1 billion in previously issued funds and pledges. All told, the government is getting 433.3 million shares of non-voting stock priced at $20.47 apiece — a discount from Friday’s closing price at $24.80.

That spread means the U.S. government already has a gain of $1.9 billion, on paper. The remarkable turn of events makes the U.S. government one of Intel’s largest shareholders at a time that the Santa Clara, California, company is in the process of jettisoning more than 20,000 workers as part of its latest attempt to bounce back from years of missteps taken under a variety of CEOs.

Intel’s current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has only been on the job for slightly more than five months, and earlier this month, it looked like he might be on shaky ground already after some lawmakers raised national security concerns about his past investments in Chinese companies while he was a venture capitalist.

Trump latched on to those concerns in an August 7 post demanding that Tan resign.

But Trump backed off after the Malaysian-born Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, leading to a deal that now has the U.S. government betting that the company is on the comeback trail after losing more than $22 billion since the end of 2023.

Trump hailed Tan as “highly respected” CEO in his Friday post. In a statement, Tan applauded Trump for “driving historic investments in a vital industry” and resolved to reward his faith in Intel.

“We are grateful for the confidence the President and the Administration have placed in Intel, and we look forward to working to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership,” Tan said.

Intel’s current stock price is just slightly above where it was when Tan was hired in March and more than 60% below its peak reached 25 years ago when its chips were still dominating the personal computer boom before being undercut by a shift to smartphones a few years later.

The company’s market value currently stands at about $108 billion – a fraction of the current chip kingpin, Nvidia, which is valued at $4.3 trillion. The stake is coming primarily through U.S. government grants to Intel through the CHIPS and Science Act that was started under President Joe Biden’s administration as a way to foster more domestic manufacturing of computer chips to lessen the dependence on overseas factories.

But the Trump administration, which has regularly pilloried the policies of the Biden administration, saw the CHIPs act as a needless giveaway and is now hoping to make a profit off the funding that had been pledged to Intel.

“We think America should get the benefit of the bargain,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said earlier this week. “It’s obvious that it’s the right move to make.”About $7.8 billion had been been pledged to Intel under the incentives program, but only $2.2 billion had been funded so far. Another $3.2 billion of the government investment is coming through the funds from another program called “Secure Enclave.”

Although the U.S. government can’t vote with its shares and won’t have a seat on Intel’s board of directors, critics of the deal view it as a troubling cross-pollination between the public and private sectors that could hurt the tech industry in a variety of ways.

For instance, more tech companies may feel pressured to buy potentially inferior chips from Intel to curry favor with Trump at a time that he is already waging a trade war that threatens to affect their products in a potential scenario cited by Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics for the Cato Institute.

“Overall, it’s a horrendous move that will have real harms for U.S. companies, U.S. tech leadership, and the U.S. economy overall,” Lincicome posted Friday.

The 10% stake could also intensify the pressure already facing Tan, especially if Trump starts fixating on Intel’s stock price while resorting to his penchant for celebrating his past successes in business.

Nancy Tengler, CEO of money manager Laffer Tengler Investments, is among the investors who abandoned Intel years ago because of all the challenges facing Intel.

“I don’t see the benefit to the American taxpayer, nor do I see the benefit, necessarily to the chip industry,” Tengler said while also raising worries about Trump meddling in Intel’s business.

“I don’t care how good of businessman you are, give it to the private sector and let people like me be the critic and let the government get to the business of government.,” Tengler said.

Although rare, it’s not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM. The U.S. government’s stake in Intel coincides with Trump’s push to bring production to the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world.

By lessening the country’s dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the U.S. will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence.

Even before gaining the 10% stake in Intel, Trump had been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are powering the AI craze, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses.

The extraordinary development follows a meeting between CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Trump after he called for Tan’s removal.

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.

Trump made the announcement on Friday. Intel, whose shares rose more than 6 percent, declined to comment.

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.

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.

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.

Earlier this week, US Senator Bernie Sanders supported the plan. He and Senator Elizabeth Warren had previously said that the US Treasury Department should receive a warrant, equity stake or senior debt instrument from any company that receives government grants like Intel had under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which sought to lure chip production away from Asia and boost US domestic semiconductor output with $39bn in subsidies.

A formal announcement of the investment is expected later on Friday.

The new stake in the tech giant aims to increase US semiconductor chip production.

United States Senator Bernie Sanders has thrown his support behind US President Donald Trump’s plan to convert US grants to chipmakers, including $10.9bn for Intel, into government stakes in the companies.

The senator for the state of Vermont announced his support on Wednesday.

“If microchip companies make a profit from the generous grants they receive from the federal government, the taxpayers of America have a right to a reasonable return on that investment,” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement to the Reuters news agency.

The awards were part of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which sought to lure chip production away from Asia and boost American domestic semiconductor output with $39bn in subsidies.

The acronym CHIPS in the name of the legislation stands for “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors”.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is now looking into the government taking equity stakes in embattled Intel and other chipmakers in exchange for the grants as the Trump administration seeks “equity” in return for “investments”.

Rare bipartisanship

The unusual alignment between Sanders and Trump on government ownership stakes in private companies highlights a marked shift by Trump toward policies of state intervention in the economy that are typically associated with the left.

Since Trump took office for a second time in January, he agreed to allow AI chip giants Nvidia and AMD to sell AI chips to China in exchange for the US government receiving 15 percent of revenues from the sales.

The Pentagon is also set to become the largest shareholder in a small mining company to boost the output of rare earth magnets. And the US government negotiated for itself a “golden share” with certain veto rights as part of a deal to allow Nippon Steel to buy US Steel.

Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, had proposed an amendment to the CHIPS Act that would have forbidden the Commerce Department from granting a CHIPS Act award without the Treasury Department receiving a warrant, equity stake or senior debt instrument issued by the recipient company.

“I am glad the Trump administration is in agreement with the amendment I offered three years ago,” Sanders said. “Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return.”

Much of the funding for CHIPS Act award recipients such as Micron, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Samsung has not been disbursed.

Trump’s interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the US, which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country’s dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the US will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence.

Earlier this month, Trump called on Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign.

The demand was triggered by reports raising national security concerns about Tan’s past investments in Chinese tech companies while he was a venture capitalist. But Trump has since backed off after Tan professed his allegiance to the US to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an “amazing story”.

This comes as Intel is also in talks with other large investors to receive an equity infusion at a discounted price just days after the chipmaker got a $2bn capital injection from the SoftBank Group, according to CNBC.

On Wall Street, investors have not responded well to the government’s potential new role. Intel stock is down 7.1 percent from the market open as of 1:30pm in New York (17:30 GMT).

Aug. 19 (UPI) — The Trump administration wants U.S. chipmaker Intel to give the federal government an equity stake to receive $8 billion via the CHIPS and Science Act.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday confirmed President Donald Trump wants Intel to give the federal government a 10% stake in Intel in exchange for money promised to it by the Biden administration upon passage of the CHIPS and Science Act.

“We should get an equity stake for our money,” Lutnick said when interviewed by CNBC on Tuesday.

“We’ll deliver the money, which was already committed under theBiden administration,” Lutnick continued. “We’ll get equity in return for it.”

Intel officials in the fall announced the tech company will receive an $8 billion grant via the CHIPS and Science Act.

The president questions why the federal government is giving that much money to a tech firm that is worth $100 billion, Lutnick said.

Commerce Secretary Scott Bessent also confirmed the Trump administration’s demand for equity in Intel, saying it’s needed to make the tech firm stable and capable of increasing domestic production of chips. Additionally, Taiwan produces most of the global supply of chips, and U.S. national security requires a domestic supply, Bessent told Bloomberg last week.

The Trump administration’s request for equity in Intel comes a day after Japan-based tech investor SoftBank on Monday announced it will invest $2 billion in Intel in exchange for Intel common stock.

“Semiconductors are the foundation of every industry,” said Masayoshi Son, SoftBank chairman and chief executive officer. “For more than 50 years, Intel has been a trusted leader in innovation.”

Son said SoftBank officials believe Intel will have a “critical role” in expanding the United States’ semiconductor manufacturing and supply.

SoftBank will pay $23 per share for Intel stock, which would amount to nearly 87 million common shares.

The Trump administration, likewise, wants equity in Intel in exchange for CHIPs and Science Act funding, rather than giving away taxpayer funds.

Intel had begun building U.S. manufacturing facilities near Columbus, Ohio, with an estimated completion date in 2030.

Intel Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan last month said the company is slowing the pace of construction and will continue work based on market conditions, CNBC reported.

President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law on Aug. 9, 2022, which provides about $280 billion in funding for the U.S. semiconductor industry.

Biden lauded the act as a success a year ago in August after tech companies pledged more than $395 billion in investments in electronics and semiconductors and created more than 115,000 jobs during the act’s first two years.

U.S. tech firms account for about 10% of the global supply of chips that power artificial intelligence and a variety of consumer goods, including appliances and computers.

The United States was on pace to produce about 30% of the global computer chip supply by 2032, Biden announced.

Officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration made comments saying the equity stake was not to run the firm.

United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said the US government wants an equity stake in Intel in exchange for cash grants approved during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Separately, also on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said any US investment in Intel would be aimed at helping the troubled chipmaker stabilise.

Asked about reports that the US was considering taking a 10 percent stake in Intel, Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” programme: “The stake would be a conversion of the grants and maybe increase the investment into Intel to help stabilise the company for chip production here in the US.”

Bessent gave no details about the size or timing of any US stake in Intel, but said any investment would not be aimed at forcing US companies to buy chips from Intel.

Bessent’s comments were the first official response from the Trump administration after Bloomberg News reported on Monday that the US government is in talks to take a 10 percent Intel stake in exchange for $7.9bn in grants that were approved for the US chip company during the Biden administration.

‘Not governance’

“We should get an equity stake for our money,” Lutnick told CNBC. “We’ll get equity in return for that … instead of just giving grants away.”

Lutnick said the US does not want control of the company.

“It’s not governance, we are just converting what was a grant under Biden into equity for the Trump administration for the American people.” He suggested any stake would be “non-voting,” meaning it would not enable the US government to tell the company how to run its business.

He made his comments a day after SoftBank Group agreed to invest $2bn into the chipmaker, which has struggled to compete after years of management blunders.

“The Biden administration literally was giving Intel money for free and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies just giving the money for free, and Donald Trump turned it into saying, ‘Hey, we want equity for the money. If we’re going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action for the American taxpayer,’” Lutnick said.

Intel and TSMC, a Taiwan-based chipmaker, did not immediately comment.

Intel helped launch Silicon Valley, but has fallen behind rivals like Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc and is shedding thousands of workers and slashing costs under its new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. It recorded an annual loss of $18.8bn in 2024, its first such loss since 1986.

Intel plans to end the year with 75,000 “core” workers, excluding subsidiaries, through layoffs and attrition, down from 99,500 core employees at the end of 2024. The company previously announced a 15 percent workforce reduction.

Trump recently said Tan, who was made CEO in March, should resign. But after meeting with him last week, Trump relented, saying Tan had an “amazing story”.

Aug. 19 (UPI) — U.S. chip maker Intel is getting a $2 billion lifeline from Japan’s SoftBank, the companies announced Monday.

SoftBank Group and Intel Corporation have signed a definitive securities purchase agreement, with SoftBank investing $2 billion in Intel common stock and the future of semiconductor innovation in the United States.

“Semiconductors are the foundation of every industry. For more than 50 years, Intel has been a trusted leader in innovation,” said Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank. “This strategic investment reflects our belief that advanced semiconductor manufacturing and supply will further expand in the United States, with Intel playing a critical role.”

SoftBank will pay $23 for each share of Intel common stock, under the terms of the agreement. The investment allows Intel to continue building on its vision of advance technologies for cloud computing, digital transformation and next-generation infrastructure.

“We are very pleased to deepen our relationship with SoftBank, a company that’s at the forefront of so many areas of emerging technology and innovation, and shares our commitment to advancing U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership,” said Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel. “Masa and I have worked closely together for decades, and I appreciate the confidence he has placed in Intel with this investment.”

SoftBank’s private investment comes as the U.S. government considers its own rescue plan for the struggling chip maker. In an effort to revive Intel’s semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, the Trump administration is considering taking a 10% stake in the company, according to The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

The investment also comes after President Donald Trump called for Tan to resign as head of the company, calling him “highly conflicted.”

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., also expressed concerns about “the security and integrity of Intel’s operations and its potential impact on U.S. national security.”

“Mr. Tan reportedly controls dozens of Chinese companies and has a stake in hundreds of Chinese advance-manufacturing and chip firms,” Cotton added.

Tan served as the CEO of Cadence Design Systems, a tech software company, between 2009 and 2021. In July, the company was charged by the Justice Department with conspiracy to commit export control violations.

Tan said earlier this month, he has “always operated within the highest legal and ethical standards” and that his “reputation has been built on trust, on doing what I say I’ll do, and doing it the right way.” Trump met with Tan last week, with the president calling the meeting “very interesting.”

Since Tan took over in March, Intel has laid off about 15% of its staff. After shares closed lower Monday, Intel’s stock jumped in after-hours trading following news of SoftBank’s investment.

Talks for an undisclosed stake come days after President Donald Trump called for Intel’s CEO to resign.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump is in talks with Intel to have the US government potentially take a stake in the chipmaker.

Intel’s shares surged more than 7 percent in regular trading and then another 2.6 percent after the bell on Thursday, following Bloomberg News’ initial report of the potential deal, which cited people familiar with the plan.

It is unclear what size stake the federal government will take, but Bloomberg reports that the deal will help “shore up” a planned factory in Ohio that has been delayed.

The plan stems from a meeting this week between Trump and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, the report said.

Tan also met Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“The meeting was a very interesting one,” Trump said on Truth Social on Monday, adding that his cabinet members and Tan are going to spend time together and bring suggestions to him during the next week.

The meeting came after Trump publicly demanded the resignation of Tan over his past investments in Chinese tech companies, some linked to the Chinese military.

Intel declined to comment on the report but said it was deeply committed to supporting Trump’s efforts to strengthen US technology and manufacturing leadership.

“Discussion about hypothetical deals should be regarded as speculation unless officially announced by the administration,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai.

The details of the stake and price are still being discussed, according to the report.

Struggling business

Any agreement and potential cash infusion will help the years-long efforts to turn around the company’s fortunes. Once the undisputed leader in chip manufacturing, Intel has lost its position in recent years.

The chipmaker’s stock market value has plummeted to $104bn from $288bn in 2020.

Intel’s profit margins – once the envy of the industry – are also at about half their historical highs.

Tan has been tasked to undo years of missteps that left Intel struggling to make inroads in the booming AI chip industry dominated by Nvidia, while investment-heavy contract manufacturing ambitions led to heavy losses.

Any agreement would likely help Intel build out its planned chip complex in Ohio, Bloomberg reported.

Intel’s planned $28bn chip fabrication plants in Ohio have been delayed, with the first unit now slated for completion in 2030 and operations to begin between 2030 and 2031, pushing the timeline back by at least five years.

Taking a stake in Intel would mark the latest move by Trump, a Republican, to deepen the government’s involvement in the US chip industry, seen as a vital security interest to the country.

Earlier this week, Trump made a deal with Nvidia to pay the US government a cut of its sales in exchange for resuming exports of banned AI chips to China.

US President Donald Trump said last week that Intel’s CEO Lip-Bu Tan was ‘highly conflicted’ because of his ties to Chinese firms.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is due to visit the White House after United States President Donald Trump last week called for his removal.

The executive of the tech giant was set to meet the president on Monday, a source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency.

Neither Intel nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment.

Tan is expected to have an extensive conversation with Trump while looking to explain his personal and professional background, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which broke the news on Sunday, adding that he could propose ways Intel and the US  government could work together, the paper said.

Tan hopes to win Trump’s approval by showing his commitment to the US and guaranteeing the importance of keeping Intel’s manufacturing capabilities as a national security issue, the WSJ added.

Last week, Trump demanded the immediate resignation of Tan, calling him “highly conflicted” due to his ties to Chinese firms, comments that raised doubts about Tan’s plans to turn around the struggling US chip icon.

It was a rare instance of a US president publicly calling for a CEO’s ouster, and sparked debate among investors.

Tan said he shared the president’s commitment to advancing US national and economic security.

Reuters reported exclusively in April that Tan invested at least $200m in hundreds of Chinese advanced manufacturing and chip firms, some of which were linked to the Chinese military.

Tan, a Malaysian-born Chinese American business executive, was also the CEO of Cadence Design from 2008 through December 2021, during which time the chip design software maker sold products to a Chinese military university believed to be involved in simulating nuclear explosions.

Last month, Cadence agreed to plead guilty and pay more than $140m to resolve the US charges over the sales.

Intel’s stock surged ahead of the meeting. The company, which trades under the ticker INTC, is up more than 7.5 percent for the day as of noon in New York (16:00 GMT).