In context: Barely a week after President Trump called for Intel's new CEO to resign, reports suggest that the White House is considering buying a stake in the beleaguered chip giant, with its current boss presumably still in place. If implemented, the plan would mark the second time in the past 12 months that the government has mulled direct intervention in the United States' only advanced semiconductor manufacturer.
According to sources talking to Bloomberg, the US government is now discussing the possibility of purchasing a stake in Intel. The idea follows a meeting between Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan and President Trump.
The size of the potential stake remains unclear, but the investment would likely support construction of Intel's planned Ohio fabrication plant, which has faced repeated delays. The facility is central to Intel's effort to regain competitiveness against semiconductor leaders TSMC and Samsung.
Spokespeople from both parties declined to comment, but Intel reiterated its desire to contribute to Trump's domestic manufacturing agenda. Following the report, Intel's shares climbed almost 9% on Thursday.
The plan marks a sharp reversal from only a week ago, when the President called for Tan's resignation after a Republican senator questioned his investments in Chinese companies.
The Malaysia-born CEO described those claims as "misinformation" and met with Trump days later. After the meeting, the President took a 180 on Tan and said he would seek input from cabinet members on ways to cooperate with the company.
Tan became Intel's CEO after the company forced out Pat Gelsinger following billions of dollars in losses. Intel's crisis has been in the making for years, losing CPU market share to AMD, canceling high-performance GPU projects, and falling behind TSMC and Samsung in the production of advanced chips.
The company is betting its manufacturing future on the success of its 18A and 14A process nodes, which are intended to compete with TSMC's 2nm tech. However, the 18A node, scheduled to debut this year with the company's Panther Lake CPUs, is known to be suffering from low yield rates. Tan has said he's willing to cancel both nodes if they fail to attract external customers.
The Biden administration also discussed intervening to prop up Intel. At the time, the company was awaiting billions in funding from the CHIPS Act, which was passed before Trump denounced it.