Dear Reader,
It’s Wednesday August 27th and today I want to focus on Intel—because what’s happened this month will be remembered in the annals of American business history.
It’s been a Titanic month. And when the books are written, Intel will get its own chapter.
The first move was President Trump converting the CHIPS Act grant into equity.
Remember, the CHIPS Act was created during the Biden administration, with bipartisan support, to incentivize companies like Intel to build semiconductors in America for national security purposes.
It was supposed to be a grant. But now, thanks to Trump, that grant has been converted into equity—making the U.S. government the largest shareholder of Intel.
And here’s a fascinating aside: both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren pushed for this exact thing back when the CHIPS Act originally passed.
It shows how Trump’s populism on the right shares surprising overlap with populism on the left.
Both sides wanted the government to take an equity stake in Intel.
The second move: SoftBank’s massive investment into Intel.
SoftBank is one of the shrewdest players in global tech. And they already own the majority of Nvidia’s secret supplier—the company we discussed in last week’s webinar whose CPUs are powering Nvidia’s new Thor chip.
Now they’ve doubled down on Intel.
And here’s the kicker: Nvidia announces earnings tonight.
They’ll be reporting on the Thor chip’s penetration into the market. That could be huge for the secret supplier providing the CPUs.
All of this got me thinking about the last time a U.S. president took extraordinary action to save the semiconductor industry.
That was Ronald Reagan, back in 1987.
The year before, Reagan had struck a deal with Japan to limit semiconductor exports into the U.S.
But when Japanese chips kept flooding in, Reagan escalated the trade war—slapping 100% tariffs on all semiconductors imported from Japan.
Why? Because the Pentagon warned that America couldn’t defend itself if we relied on foreign countries for chips.
Sound familiar?
Those tariffs gave America’s semiconductor industry the protection it needed. And what happened next?
Intel flourished in the 1990s, creating immense wealth.
Government intervention—done lightly—worked.
Grants, tariffs, tax breaks… These are all proven tools to steer domestic policy.
But there’s one method that hasn’t worked: direct government partnerships.
Back in ’87, Washington tried exactly that with Sematech, a public-private consortium funded by the federal government and 14 chipmakers. The idea was to share manufacturing know-how and outpace Japan together.
It failed.
America did reclaim its lead in semiconductors—but it wasn’t because of Sematech. It was because entrepreneurs, driven by competition and the lure of profit, pushed harder and faster.
That’s why capitalism works.
As Adam Smith explained, human beings are competitive, warlike creatures.
Capitalism channels that energy into money-making instead of bloodshed.
It lets people act on their animal spirits by building businesses, inventing technologies, and creating wealth.
That’s what drove Intel and Microsoft to dominate the 1990s.
And that’s why we have to be careful about how far the government goes.
Incentives can work.
But once the government tries to run the show, innovation suffers.
Which is why today’s moment is so striking.
For the first time outside of a crisis, the U.S. government has taken a major equity stake in a company like Intel. Not during a financial meltdown. Not to bail out a bank. But in the normal course of policy.
It’s unprecedented.
Some compare it to China, where the government regularly takes stakes and inserts “monitors” into companies to ensure they follow orders.
Libertarians are already up in arms.
But here we are. Populism is reshaping American politics from both sides.
And now, in 2025, the person who finally did what Sanders and Warren pushed for years ago—was Donald Trump.
Strange times indeed.
That’s all I have for you today.
We’ll be watching Nvidia’s earnings tonight very closely.
And I encourage you to take this last opportunity to view our webinar now… Before we take it down for good.
I’ll be back tomorrow with more.
Have a blessed, wonderful day.
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Written by Dylan Jovine