In late August 2025, Intel filed an 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission that revealed a groundbreaking deal with the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The arrangement converts previously awarded CHIPS Act funds into equity, marking the first time the Biden and then Trump administrations’ semiconductor initiative has resulted in direct federal ownership of a major U.S. corporation.
The Terms
Under the terms, the Commerce Department will purchase up to 433.3 million new Intel shares at a price of $20.47, representing roughly a 9.9 percent non-controlling stake in the company. In addition, the government will receive a five-year warrant, exercisable at $20 per share, for up to an additional 5 percent of Intel’s equity.
That warrant is triggered only if Intel’s ownership of its foundry business falls below 51 percent, a clause clearly designed to ensure that the nation’s most strategically sensitive semiconductor assets remain under American control.
The deal includes other safeguards as well. Roughly 158 million of the new shares are held in escrow and released only as Secure Enclave program funds are disbursed, aligning the government’s equity with Intel’s performance on its most sensitive national-security projects.
The government agreed to vote its shares in line with Intel’s board of directors, except in narrowly defined matters of national interest, and it is prohibited from transferring its stake for at least one year.
In exchange, Intel secured $5.7 billion in immediate funding, with another $3.2 billion scheduled for release once Secure Enclave milestones are met. When combined with earlier awards, the company now stands to receive more than $11 billion in federal support.
A Departure From Precedent
This sort of equity-for-aid arrangement is rare in modern U.S. practice outside of emergency situations. For decades, Republicans in particular argued strongly against government ownership of private companies, framing such interventions as contrary to free-market principles.
The archetypal example came during the Great Financial Crisis, when the Treasury and Federal Reserve orchestrated the takeover of American International Group. The federal government ultimately became AIG’s majority shareholder after an $85 billion rescue, a step that many Republican lawmakers openly condemned.
Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky derided the bailout as “socialism,” accusing the Treasury Secretary of acting “like the minister of finance in China.” Representative Ron Paul argued that the federal government was confiscating resources from productive firms to subsidize failing ones, warning of the dangers of corporate cronyism. These sentiments dominated Republican rhetoric for years, making Intel’s case all the more striking.
Industrial Policy, Not Crisis Management
The present moment is different. Intel’s arrangement is not a crisis bailout of a collapsing financial institution, but an intentional exercise in industrial policy. It is designed to secure America’s technological leadership in advanced chipmaking and to prevent strategically vital facilities from being sold or controlled abroad.
President Donald Trump has since suggested that this is not a one-off deal, but the beginning of a broader strategy. He has indicated that the Commerce Department is actively considering similar arrangements in other sectors deemed critical to national security and economic resilience. That prospect raises an important question: would companies that eagerly accepted CHIPS Act grants have done so if they had known the price might eventually include giving up a slice of ownership?
Implications for Other CHIPS Act Recipients
For firms like TSMC, Samsung, and Micron—each of which has already received multibillion-dollar grants or loans under the CHIPS program—the Intel precedent looms large. Unlike Intel, their awards to date have been structured as grants and loans, not equity. If equity stakes become a regular feature of U.S. industrial support, it could change the calculus for multinational corporations weighing how much to invest in American production.
Public ownership introduces dilution, new reputational considerations, and potential backlash from foreign governments or customers, especially given that much of these companies’ revenues come from overseas markets. At the same time, it offers guaranteed funding, reduced financial risk, and the implicit backing of the U.S. government in industries where scale and capital intensity can overwhelm even the strongest private balance sheets.
A New Era in American Industrial Strategy
Intel’s agreement may therefore mark the beginning of a new era in American industrial strategy, one in which public ownership is not a last-resort crisis tool but an intentional lever of policy. Whether other companies follow its path will depend not only on their willingness to cede equity, but on Washington’s appetite to extend this experiment in public ownership beyond the first test case.