Kevin Hassett, Director of the White House National Economic Council, is drawing a line in the sand. While the Trump administration moves forward with acquiring a roughly 10% non-voting equity stake in Intel, Hassett wants everyone to know this shouldn’t become a habit.
The deal and its discontents
The US government announced it would take a stake of approximately 9.9% to 10% in Intel, amounting to roughly 433.3 million non-voting shares valued at around $8.9 billion. The funding comes from a portion of approximately $11.1 billion tied to the CHIPS and Science Act, the landmark legislation designed to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to American soil.
Hassett described the arrangement as a “very, very special circumstance” during a CNBC appearance on August 25, 2025, and described full government ownership of Intel as “extreme.”
Intel reported losses of nearly $19 billion in one year and another $3.7 billion in the first half of the following year. The investment modifies benchmarks originally set during the Biden administration’s CHIPS initiative, essentially reworking an existing framework rather than building one from scratch.
