Economy·Donald TrumpBernie Sanders and Donald Trump form an unly alliance over billions in chipmaker subsidiesBy Eva RoytburgBy Eva RoytburgFellow, NewsEva RoytburgFellow, NewsEva is a fellow on Fortune's news desk.SEE FULL BIO Sen.
Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has been a long-time foe of President Donald Trump's. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesU.S. Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been a longtime political enemy of President Donald Trump.
However, in a political plot twist, Sanders, considered a gressive, has lined up behind his foe’s plan to turn multibillion-dollar semiconductor subsidies into government equity stakes in .
The unly duo—a self-described democratic socialist from Vermont and a populist-leaning Republican president—now agree on one shift in America’s industrial policy: If the government is going to hand out billions, taxpayers should own a piece of the pie.
“If microchip companies make a fit from the generous grants they receive from the federal government, the taxpayers of America have a right to a reasonable return on that investment,” Sanders told Fortune.
The subject of this unprecedented convergence is Intel, the struggling chipmaker that received $10.9 billion under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act.
The injection was part of a broader $39 billion subsidy designed to lure semiconductor duction away from Asia.
The Trump administration is now pushing to exchange some of those grants for government ownership stakes, which rattled and sent Intel’s stock plummeting 6% since the announcement. Intel declined to .
Strange bedfellows The idea was Sanders’ in the first place, he said. Sanders has long criticized the CHIPS Act as corporate welfare for some of the world’s most fitable nology companies.
Back in 2022, he and U.S. Sen.
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) posed an amendment requiring the Treasury Department to take warrants, equity stakes, or senior debt whenever federal money went to private chipmakers.
However, that amendment failed. Now, three years later, Trump is reviving the idea, and Sanders is applauding.
“I am glad the Trump administration is in agreement with the amendment I offered three years ago,” Sanders said.
“Taxpayers should not be viding billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, fitable corporations Intel without getting anything in return.” For Trump, the move represents a dramatic embrace of state intervention in the private sector, a tactic he has increasingly leaned on in his second term.
This month, Trump called for Intel’s CEO Lip Bu-Tan’s resignation over past ties to Chinese firms.
Earlier this year, the administration struck a deal allowing Nvidia and AMD to sell AI chips to China in exchange for Washington pocketing 15% of the revenues.
It’s an economic strategy that looks less Reaganism, and more of a mashup between populism and state-capitalism. In that case, Trump and Sanders are two apt representatives for the merging camps.
The White House did not respond to Fortune’s request for by press time.
recoil Investors aren’t thrilled by this new strategy ofpunishing Intel stock for the uncertainty what government ownership entails for the government.
Intel has already been seeking private capital infusions—including a $2 billion injection from Japan’s SoftBank this month—to shore up its balance sheet.
The Commerce Department, led by Secretary Howard Lutnick, is still reviewing how to implement the plan, according to Reuters.
But the optics are : The United States, it seems, is no longer content to subsidize semiconductor manufacturing without strings attached.
For Sanders, it’s validation; and for Trump it’s a newfound strategy. But for Intel, which was once the undisputed king of U.S. chipmaking, it’s yet another twist in an already turbulent year.
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