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Sen. Warren: Intel is a failing company

osnium

Well-known member
Sen. Warren’s letter to Secretary Lutnick about the Intel investment:

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The Honorable Howard Lutnick
SecretaryDepartment of Commerce
1401 Constitution Ave. NWWashington, D.C. 20230

Dear Secretary Lutnick:

I write with great concern about President Donald Trump’s decision to invest $8.9 billion of taxpayer dollars in Intel, taking a 10% stake in the company, without any conditions or safeguards to ensure that American workers and taxpayers benefit. Intel is a failing company. 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.

The Biden Administration, as part of its implementation of the CHIPS Act, awarded Intel nearly$8 billion in 2024. That grant came with a clear deliverable: Intel was to invest over $100 billion in new fabs and facilities across the country.1 It also came with specific guardrails to protect the public. Under the agreement, Intel agreed to generally refrain from stock buybacks for five years, 2 work closely with labor unions, and expand affordable childcare. 3 If Intel made excessive profits from its investments, the government would share a portion of those profits. 4 And the entire agreement was enforceable, with specific milestones that Intel would need to achieve before it receives the next disbursement of public funds.

.......

 
Gotta love politics. Just a quick summary:

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Senator Elizabeth Warren's letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, dated September 3, 2025, criticizes President Trump's decision to invest $8.9 billion in taxpayer funds for a 10% stake in Intel without safeguards. She portrays Intel as a failing company (stock down 60% last year) that prioritized short-term profits over long-term investments. Warren contrasts this with the Biden Administration's 2024 CHIPS Act grant to Intel, which included conditions like a $100B investment commitment, no stock buybacks for five years, union collaboration, affordable childcare, and profit-sharing with the government.

Under Trump's deal, announced August 22, 2025, after meeting Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, the grants were converted to equity, discharging most CHIPS obligations (per Intel's SEC filing), including onshoring requirements. The government gets no board seat or independent voting rights, must align with the board, and faces high risks from Intel's declining revenue, job cuts (25,000 planned), and operational struggles. Warren warns of potential adverse effects like limited strategic deals, foreign regulations, and stakeholder backlash.

She advocates for responsible equity stakes in public-good companies (citing her co-sponsored CHIPS amendment with Sen. Sanders) but calls Trump's approach chaotic and favoring special interests, allowing possible offshoring, buybacks, and dividends. Warren urges learning from this "bad deal" for future interventions and poses nine questions on authority, remaining obligations, negotiators, taxpayer protections, exit terms, buyback/dividend restrictions, union safeguards, and voting rights, requesting responses by September 17, 2025.
 
Like America even have any option besides Intel they should fund Intel or should watch other countries pulling ahead.

Like America even have any option besides Intel they should fund Intel or should watch other countries pulling ahead.
If "we" are going to invest in semiconductor manufacturing technology, why not TI who seems to know how to manage technology, people and product? Intel isn't our only choice.
 
She was behind the CHIPs Act which was basically charity, some for companies that did not really need it and were not US based, but she does not support investment where the American taxpayer could get a return on the investment?
well Yes TSMC didn't needed the Money Intel/Micron would have been better off with that Money
 
well Yes TSMC didn't needed the Money Intel/Micron would have been better off with that Money
The Chips act is not a subsidy for the company. it was never intended for that. It was to get factories in the US. They could have gotten the subsidies in other countries. It is working great. .... If you want company subsidies, create a welfare program for needy companies.

IMO we want the best companies to manufacture in the US, not the ones on life support.

3 years from now TSMC will be the shining star of Chips act and subsidies. The other companies will be a political discussion topic on "what happened"

Also it is possible to offer subsidies to get R&D and product design done in the US. Intel and Micron both changed organization to move leadership to Asia in exchange for government support. This is what the US should do IMO.
 
Why bother moving management to Asia?
I have no idea what it means
I understand the point of hiring talented Asians, but that can be done easily in the US.
There's no need to go to Asia
 
Incidentally, the complaints about the government investing in Intel are...
It reminds me of the people in my hometown of Japan who are complaining about the government's investment in Rapidus.
 
The Chips act is not a subsidy for the company. it was never intended for that. It was to get factories in the US. They could have gotten the subsidies in other countries. It is working great. .... If you want company subsidies, create a welfare program for needy companies.

IMO we want the best companies to manufacture in the US, not the ones on life support.

3 years from now TSMC will be the shining star of Chips act and subsidies. The other companies will be a political discussion topic on "what happened"

Also it is possible to offer subsidies to get R&D and product design done in the US. Intel and Micron both changed organization to move leadership to Asia in exchange for government support. This is what the US should do IMO.
Yes, the point of the subsidies was to pay TSMC to bring semiconductor manufacturing to the US and so far, the ROI of the money spent so far seems to be very good. TSMC is hiring interns to teach Americans about semiconductors.

 
Politicians are good at sensing weakness. They would like to hang the Solyndra label on Intel and hang that dunce cap on Trump for investing in another Solyndra. And she may be right, time will tell. On the other hand, more sophisticated VCs are prepared for 90% failure rate in order to get 100x wins occasionally.

It worries me that team Democrat are pulling for Intel to fail.
 
If "we" are going to invest in semiconductor manufacturing technology, why not TI who seems to know how to manage technology, people and product? Intel isn't our only choice.
Because TI doesn't do cutting edge logic development. Not a knock on TI, its just that they don't meet that particular need. If there were some other option for leading edge logic development in the US I'm willing to bet that no one on this board would be saying we need Intel.
 
I'm sure if Intel was more unionized, Warren would magically be super pro-Intel
The amusing thing is that Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, perhaps the loudest advocates of labor unions in Congress, have never themselves been union members.

As a former member of the AFL-CIO, working under a union seniority contract, I can say that after that experience I despised labor unions. IMO, you can't really understand unions and how they operate until you're a member of one.
 
I'm sure if Intel was more unionized, Warren would magically be super pro-Intel
In 2022, there was an Intel engineer who was running for Congress and as part of his campaign, he tried to push for a unionization drive for lithography engineers. Both the unionization drive and the campaigns failed.

 
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