> The US getting 10% of Intel without any payment is very bad. Was there no shareholder vote?

I know that this is how it was reported everywhere including here, but I recently learned that it's apparently false. The US just bought shares. From https://www.reuters.com/business/us-take-10-equity-stake-int...:

> Under the agreement, the U.S. will purchase a 9.9% stake in Intel for $8.9 billion, or $20.47 per share, which represents a discount of about $4 from Intel's closing share price of $24.80 on Friday.

So they bought a 9.9% stake at a slight discount. (And just have to go back a couple of weeks to find Intel's stock price at under $20.47 per share, so I'm not sure you can really call it a real "discount").

> The US getting 10% of Intel without any payment is very bad. Was there no shareholder vote?

I assumed they were buying shares like any other investor. How are they getting it for free?

It was essentially bribery.

Under Biden there was money to be granted (as in: via a grant, Congressionally approved) to Intel. Trump then held the grant hostage in return for government ownership of Intel shares.

There's also a threat that this deali supposedly eases around the Intel CEO that Trump said was 'too connected' to China.

It's either borderline or blatantly illegal, but there are likely no parties eligible to contest, or interested in contesting, it in court.

(Based on my memory of someone's breakdown of a few examples like this - there's a chance I'm conflating a couple of different but related things, the deal with Nvidia to allow selling of some more advanced chips to China being another)

Where did you read there was no payment? That's not true, the US is not Russia. Not yet at least.

The difference is that the border wall was an expensive publicity stunt and this is a working wind farm that will actually accomplish its intended purpose if completed. it's worth noting that border wall construction in fact resumed under Biden because the money was legally appropriated for that purpose and the President lacked the power to redirect the funding on his own (https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/bidens-border-wall-explain...).

That's completely different.

• The border wall was a government project, and a large chunk of the money for it came Trump declaring a national emergency and using that to redirect around $7 billion of funding meant for other things to it after Congress refused to provide the level of funding he wanted.

Biden cancelled those parts that Trump had added. He did not cancel those parts that Congress had voted to fund. He wanted those stopped too but went about it through normal channels: he asked Congress to cancel them. Congress did not, and so his administration continued constructing those parts.

• The wind farm is a private project.