Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

541–550 of 765 posts

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#541

Post by andrewflnr »

rchiang wrote: post #536
andrewflnr wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think $8.9B would do it?

TSMC's estimated costs in 2020, were $12 billion for their first fab. In 2025, their updated estimates were $65 billion for the first three fabs and $165 billion for when they get to six such facilities. So, $8.9B is a lot of money, but isn't anywhere close to getting to the equivalent to what TSMC has in Taiwan.

> getting to the equivalent to what TSMC has in Taiwan

That wasn't the question. The question, at least for me, is can you build non-zero chip production, enough to start building out a sustainable business. Obviously you're not going to compete with TSMC on day one, but there's a wide spectrum between that and "garage".

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#542

Post by re-thc »

edge17 wrote: post #520
cududa wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part of the CHIPS act says companies receiving funds have to give the government 10% of the company to continue receiving funds?

Section 9902 of the act authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to provide financial assistance to "covered entities" One can argue how to interpret "financial assistance" broadly, which is exactly what the administration has done.

> One can argue how to interpret "financial assistance" broadly, which is exactly what the administration has done

You can? So some years later they can change it again? Where's the trust?

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#543

Post by rpmisms »

bink wrote: post #305
signatoremo wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to study history. US government is no stranger in getting stakes in businesses. Did you already forget the Great Depression? https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/governmen...

We aren't anywhere close to being in a depression though. What extraordinary situation requires the government to take a stake in a public company and under what conditions will this position be liquidated?

We are very close to being in a depression. Most of our money has nothing to do with actually feeding or housing people. If the wrong thing shifts, we're toast.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#544

Post by bigyabai »

scarface_74 wrote: post #335
bigyabai wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government support should have come in the form of a real competitor. Intel got this way because they had no competition - nobody thought a domestic EULV manufacturer would be an American prerogative in 20 years. All the customers for dense silicon were fine importing it from Taiwan. Pouring more money into a proven dumpster fire won't put out the fire. This is the protectionist just-desert of refusing to regulat…

So tell me your plan that would create a competitor for Intel from scratch that could be making decent chips in 5 years? 10 years?

Is it too much "magic" for the moneyed geniuses down at Apple? Or is technology not quite their wheelhouse anymore?

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#545

Post by re-thc »

BeetleB wrote: post #509
BurningFrog wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, the government didn't pay anything for these shares.

Why does this keep coming up? They're paying the rest of the CHIPS Act money. Overall, they're putting in over $10B into Intel.

> They're paying the rest of the CHIPS Act money. Overall, they're putting in over $10B into Intel.

So taking a scholarship means you're giving a % of yourself to the school?

Was this ever mentioned when Intel signed up? Did you know about it?

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#547

Post by andsoitis »

sgnelson wrote: post #468

Everyone is talking about "bailouts" and "owning a company that the government funds." This isn't about that at all. This is about the breakdown of the rule of law, a unitary executive bypassing all other branches of government and demanding a private enterprise give itself over to the government. If you don't think there was an "or else" as part of this deal, you're largely mistaken. If you don't think that there wi…

> is about the breakdown of the rule of law, a unitary executive bypassing all other branches of government and demanding a private enterprise give itself over to the government.

What do you think about Senator Bernie Sanders backing Trump plan for government stake in Intel?

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/8/20/us-senator-berni...

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#548

Post by andrewflnr »

msgodel wrote: post #407
andrewflnr wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Someone's garage" is a straw man. There must be people here who could, with adequate funding, build a smallish but viable chip manufacturing company.

I think one of the people who got closest to that was Sam Zeloof. He kind of had everything going: extremely clever and motivated, cooperation with his parents (who also worked in the industry), access to equipment. Kind of hard to improve on that. He was able to replicate most of Intel's SOTA process... from 50 years ago. That's more than almost everyone else has managed in their garage but that's about the best you…

> The reality is all our "defense" needs (and arguably most other needs too) are far more than adequately met with processes a decade old now. It's really not the big deal everyone makes it out to be.

Right, this is why I think in-sourcing chip manufacture is totally viable (that is, if we were actually interested in that and not just using it as an excuse for corruption). The interesting exceptions I've heard about are things like, IIRC, high-power local AI for autonomous drones. But for SAMs and such, old tech will probably do it.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#549

Post by aorloff »

m4rtink wrote: post #155
cvoss wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is in the paragraph in between the two you quoted from. The money for the purchase has already been appropriated by Congress and awarded to Intel. The awards didn't previously have this giant string attached where Intel gives stock in return. But now they do. And it makes sense that Intel is spinning it as a generous investment from the gov't, but the gov't is spinning it as a free gift from Intel. Neither…

Isn't that pretty bad, Darth Vader style changing of previously agreed on deals ? Not sure how anyone can believe anything that was agreed will hold in such an environment. :P

Imagine the stakes of the next election after such an environment

The sparks will fly

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#550

Post by beart »

andrewflnr wrote: post #491
tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a straw man. There is no amount of scrappy cleverness that gets you from zero to manufacturing cutting-edge chips without shitloads of capital investment, years/decades of R&D, a huge manufacturing workforce, and big contracts. There's no such thing as starting small and scaling in that business.

You don't think $8.9B would do it?

This link contains a graph of fab costs over time. It looks like 9 billion might get you a cutting edge fab 15-20 years ago. but that's just the fab.

https://semiwiki.com/forum/threads/how-to-build-a-20-billion...

Post reply on HN