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Trump’s Intel Intervention

By directing the government to take an equity stake in Intel, followed immediately by SoftBank and Nvidia, Trump was able to boost the company’s market value by $26 billion. But the leading U.S. producer of semiconductors is still way behind on A.I., and notably short of customers.

Jensen Huang, Donald Trump
Even with the new money, the seeming votes of confidence from SoftBank and Nvidia—and the boost, or whatever it is, from Trump—Intel remains “fundamentally in a rough spot,” Stacy Rasgon says. Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
September 21, 2025

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It seemed like any other day in the Trump administration. On August 7, the president was once again inserting himself into the affairs of a private company. This time, Trump was going after Lip-Bu Tan, the C.E.O. of Intel, the largest U.S. manufacturer of semiconductors. Posting on Truth Social, Trump wrote that Tan “must resign, immediately” because  he was “highly CONFLICTED,” adding that there was “no other solution to this problem.”