In case you missed it ...
✋ What are the limits to Trumpian state capitalism? (Monday)
✨ AI is having job effects. And that's OK (Tuesday)
🚀 A Quick Q&A with economist Matt Weinzierl on the growing business of space (Wednesday)
💻 Trump’s Intel stake: deal-making over doctrine (August 25, 2025)
In a Nutshell. Trump’s Intel interventions represent a personalized state capitalism — a product of his taste for deal-making and equity stakes — that comes at the expense of the national interest.
Policy Brief: Under Trump, an ersatz from of industrial policy is happening in the Oval Office. His push to convert $9 billion in promised Intel subsidies into a 10 percent government stake reflects not strategy but a preference for leverage and ownership.
What’s the Deal. After coercing the resignation of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan over China ties, Trump struck a shareholder deal making Washington Intel’s largest owner. Similar arrangements have appeared elsewhere in the form of a “golden share” in Nippon Steel, stakes in MP Materials, and revenue-linked deals with Nvidia and AMD. Officials hint more could follow.
Risks. Once a precedent is set, any proclaimed “strategic” industry — autos, batteries, AI — could argue for the same treatment, drifting into dangerous command-economy territory and undermining America’s open-market model. At the same time, the benefits to Intel are uncertain: “Analysts caution that the deal is only a win, by Trump’s terms, if it secures anchor customers for Intel’s advanced chipmaking processes. Seems like a stretch given the company’s chronic troubles. Otherwise, Intel ends up in an even worse bind: financially weaker, strategically constrained, and entangled with government agendas.”
Up Wing Up Shot: US innovation policy has historically delivered returns indirectly through innovation “by moving discoveries quickly into private hands,” not through federal ownership. Trump’s Intel deal conflates public-good investment and personal deal-making, leaving Intel weaker and more politicized.
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