Trump Deal Lets Intel Move Factories Overseas, Sen. Warren Explains

[Celerity]

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-09-04-trump-deal-lets-intel-move-factories-overseas-sen-warren-equity-stake/



In 2022, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) co-authored an amendment to the CHIPS and Science Act that would have required semiconductor companies seeking grants for domestic plant construction to give the government warrants, stock equity, or senior debt in the company. The idea was to ensure that the grants were used in the best interest of the public as intended, rather than chip companies essentially leaking them out to shareholders or as executive compensation.

The amendment failed, but fast-forward three years and Donald Trump’s government has taken a 10 percent equity stake in Intel, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the CHIPS Act. Trump said the equity stake was a conversion of the grant, and Sen. Sanders, at least, was supportive of it. So what does his co-author of the amendment, Sen. Warren, say about the Intel stake?

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick released today and obtained exclusively by the Prospect, Warren blasts the Trump administration for substituting the equity stake for all of the other specific terms Intel was required to follow to ensure they were making good use of the CHIPS Act funds.

“Intel is a failing company,” Warren wrote to Lutnick. “After spending years focused on chasing short-term profits at the expense of long-term investments in its competitiveness, the company’s share price fell 60 percent last year. Yet the President has handed billions of dollars to Intel, with no meaningful strings attached.”

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