Andrew here. As the government negotiates for a stake in Intel, SoftBank is buying into the chipmaker, too. The big question: Where is demand for Intel chips going to come from? Is the Trump administration going to pressure tech giants to buy Intel chips, even if they are a lesser product?
You might recall that the Biden administration tried to persuade big tech companies to buy Intel chips, but most demurred. Will this White House use more aggressive sales tactics?
Intel and the new U.S. capitalism?
We asked last week whether the U.S. government taking a cut of some artificial intelligence chip sales to China could be seen by Beijing and others as a sort of state-sponsored capitalism. What Washington may do with Intel is a potentially bigger step down that road.
It’s understandable why the Trump administration is weighing whether to take a large stake in the embattled chipmaker. But doing so could lead to major consequences for the tech industry, the A.I. race — and the federal government’s relationship with private enterprise.
The details (so far): The White House may seek to convert roughly $10.9 billion in federal grants to Intel, given as part of the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act, into a 10 percent stake in the company, according to The Times, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. (The mechanics of doing so aren’t yet clear.)
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick believes that turning the grants into an ownership stake might be the best way to help Intel while protecting U.S. taxpayers’ interests, The Journal adds.
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The post Trump May Expand His Revision of U.S. Capitalism appeared first on New York Times.
