Yes, but its semiconductor industry so its complicated.

Intel got money via grants from the chip act and via other governments. Part of the reason they got that money was to help them build the chip fans in the USA and funding research and workforce in other nations. The fact Intel has claimed its slowing construction basically is a full 180° spin and will set them back in manufacturing ability.

Previous CEO strategy was focused on heavy investment in catching up on manufacturing ability. But once you get stuck on a node it becomes expensive to catch up.

New CEO is clearly trying to shed weight. They have let go of a significant % of workforce, stopped certain projects all together, and seem to be basically selling off parts of their technology and assets to keep cashflow positive.

Given the current CEO and his history and connections, plus the US government involvement it looks like a rocky situation.

That's precisely how private citizen Trump ran his businesses as well. Make an agreement with contractors to get work started knowing full well those agreements were never going to be honored. Instead, refuse to pay anything forcing contractors to renegotiate at much worse terms vs not getting anything at all. The whole time banking on these contractors not willing to fight in court. That was the art of the deal

> Isn't that pretty bad, Darth Vader style changing of previously agreed on deals ?

There has been some changing of deals on Intel's part as well, with indefinite delays on US fab buildouts the US passed a bill to subsidize. Now the US is taking some equity for its debt.

Far more dramatic Government intervention took place in 2009 when the US bailed out domestic automakers, including equity. Don't recall as much angst about that among the laptop class. Because Obama.

> Isn't that pretty bad, Darth Vader style changing of previously agreed on deals ?

haha, is this the first you hear of this Trump guy? He rutinely breaks deals, like all the fucking time. (I get that this was not his deal, he breaks those too)

A deal with Trump is worth nothing.

Imagine the stakes of the next election after such an environment

The sparks will fly

Also, the timing is mighty suspicious, with this NIH decision being published yesterday (21st) and the announcement happening this morning (22nd). I wouldn't be surprised if Intel's lawyers were waiting (perhaps slow-walking the admin) for this particular NIH decision, and when it came down in favor of the government advised the CEO the only way to get the remaining billions disbursed in any reasonable amount of time was to acquiesce to Trump's demand and close the deal.

The thing you're missing is that it was different administrations offering the grant vs the "investment".

> Worth noting that Intel is the only company that had these kinds of shenanigans pulled with their grant.

Sure, but Intel's new CEO is making a lot of noise that indicates that Intel is maybe not going to be able/willing to build some-to-many of the things the CHIPS money paid for.

Giving FedGov a 10% stake in the company [0] is better than taking the money back for nonperformance, wouldn't you say?

[0] Which -as I understand it- was the sort of thing that was done for those finance companies that were Too Big To Fail when all that fraud^W novel financial engineering eventually caught up to them.

> Worth noting that Intel is the only company that had these kinds of shenanigans pulled with their grant.

So far...

Trump feels Biden gave intel billions for nothing. Trump feels he’s balanced the scales by getting 10% of Intel. Trump gets to spin it as getting 10% of Intel for nothing.

Win win for Trump.

  > Depends on who you ask. Trump himself seems to think the US is getting 10% for free.

Getting stock in exchange of grants makes more sense than "pure" grants.

This stock can later be sold, to benefit the taxpayer.

Breaking into an empty locked building is still breaking and entering.

So then it’s fine?

As long as there’s still cash, there’s plenty of stuff to loot.