Well yeah sure, it's just a little histrionic to call all government owned businesses communism. They aren't enforcing a monopoly on chip fab or anything.

Trump tries to ban AMD then sure, it's communism and would be super weird.

How is this legal?

I really feel like we are talking past each other.
I'm talking about people who wanted to privatize the Social Security system and sell off the USPS because they believed any amount of government in any service was dangerous. I'm not being histrionic, I'm asking the people who have spent decades being histrionic to explain why they are suddenly very chill with something that was, until a week ago, a firmly held religious belief.

Don't mistake my position for that of the people I'm trying to reach.

Also how is not socialism? Imagine the wailing from Repugnants if the Democrats did this.

How is this legal?

I've been building computers since 1999, and I've noticed that the industry is cyclical. I've purchased CPUs from both Intel and AMD. We need Intel to succeed, otherwise AMD will dominate the x86 processor market.

Ars is making a mountain out of a molehill.

James McRitchie

Kristin Hull

These are literal activists investors known for taking such stances. It would be weird if they didn't.

a company that's not in crisis

Intel is literally circling the drain. It doesn't look like it on paper, but the fab/chip design business is so long term that if they don't get on track, they're basically toast. And they're also important to the military.

Intel stock is up, short term and YTD. CNBC was ooing and aahing over it today. Intel is not facing major investor backlash.

Of course there are blatant issues, like:

However, the US can vote "as it wishes," Intel reported, and experts suggested to Reuters that regulations may be needed to "limit government opportunities for abuses such as insider trading."

And we all know they're going to insider trade the heck out of it, openly, and no one is going to stop them. Not to speak of the awful precedent this sets.

But the sentiment (not the way the admin went about it) is not a bad idea. Government ties/history mixed with private enterprise are why TSMC and Samsung Foundry are where they are today, and their bowed-out competitors are not.

Beyond the greater issues of corruption, at face value there's no reason the government buying up a company with important strategic value should be illegal

Think long term. What kind of regulatory capture is going to happen? Protected companies stagnate instead of innovate. That 10%? That's not a cash deal. It's not revenue for the share holders. It's basically the value of all the CHIPS deal and other things that Intel was already getting. They literally gave 10% of the company away for free.

And it's illegal. And it's communism. It's everything Republicans hated when the Obama administration gave Solyndra a loan. This is pure corruption and will end badly for everyone.

The stock is up. But that's not because this is good. It's up because investors didn't think this through. Short term profit vs long term fail.

Intel is stagnating since the x86 instruction set because the PC platform default. They have been a drag, along with microsoft on all things computers since the 1980s

Good point. But would the share price otherwise have been higher without the government discounted purchase? Share dilution, law of supply and demand, etc are all decent arguments the shareholders could make.

And there's now increased risk that the purchase could cause future strategic and market challenges, especially internationally.

Plus it's not just a share price issue. For example, the fact that shareholders have had their voting power diluted is arguably a concern.

Is the 10% new shares issued specifically for the government? I understood they were existing shares so dilution would not apply here.

intel must still be hanging on purely based on corporate computers? or is there something else they are a large part of?

this just be in my bubble, but i feel like anyone i know over the last 15 years has been exclusively getting AMD, whether theyre tech savvy or just a regular consumer.

Competitor is already here. Apple and Ampere are making ARM systems that fit most users needs. There are ARM servers. But people don’t want to switch.

I'd buy a macbook, but it's a lot more expensive than my "throw Linux on a used corporate thinkpad" approach, and I can tolerate macOS, but don't love it. If you're in the market for a new premium laptop, I think they're pretty established, and I do think people are buying them.

Ampere workstations are cool, but in a price range where most customers are probably corporate, and they'll mostly buy what they know works. I think their offerings are mostly niche for engineers who do dev work with stuff that will run on arm servers.

I'd say non-corporate arm adoption will grow when there's more affordable new and used options from mainstream manufacturers. Most people won't go for an expensive niche option, and probably don't care about architecture. Most Apple machines probably sell because they're Apple machines, not because of the chip inside.

I don't know exact numbers, but I do feel that arm server adoption isn't going to badly, especially with new web servers.

Would it be the same as if they did the same with Boeing? If they were circling the drain? Since Boeing literally makes military planes for the US goververment, so that means that they can't fail lest say they got bought by some Chinese or XYZ interest outside of the USA. So then those new owners would have access to highly classified designs and schematics that the military uses.

Shrug. The DoD is notorious for trying to keep competition between its suppliers alive. But I don’t know enough about the airplane business to say they’re in a death spiral or not.

The fab business is a bit unique because of the sheer scaling of planning and capital involved.

I dunno why you brought up China/foreign interests though. Intel’s military fab designs would likely never get sold overseas, and neither would the military arm of Boeing. I wouldn’t really care about that either way…

This is just about keeping one of three leading edge processor fabs on the planet alive, and of course the gov is a bit worried about the other two in Taiwan and South Korea.

How is this legal?

Public ownership of companies for the benefit of the public is a form of socialism, but Trump's fascist oligarchy serves only the wealthy elites. Oligarchs hijacking democracy for their own benefit isn't socialism.