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”.
