President Donald Trump told Fortune he regrets not asking the U.S. government to take a larger ownership stake in Intel when his administration acquired a 10% position last year and pledged roughly $10 billion to help expand chipmaking facilities in the United States. The investment, he noted, has performed strongly: eight months after the deal was announced the government’s stake has grown in value to more than $50 billion.
“Do I get credit for it? Does anybody even know I did that?” Trump asked in the interview. Asked about an exit strategy, he said the government could sell shares gradually over time to avoid pushing the stock price down.
Trump argued Intel should now be the biggest company in the world and suggested the chipmaker would have captured far more business if he had been president earlier. He said that had he been in office when many companies began importing chips from China, he would have imposed tariffs that would have protected Intel’s market share.
The Fortune interview was conducted ahead of Trump’s first trip to Beijing since 2017. His visit concluded without major breakthroughs on trade or clear commitments from China to help end the more-than-two-month-old conflict between Israel and Iran, according to the report.
The comments add to discussion about the U.S. government’s growing role in the semiconductor industry and how administrations weigh industrial policy, national security and financial considerations when taking equity stakes in strategic companies.
