The U.S. government could take equity stakes in more companies in the future as the Trump administration looks to build a sovereign wealth fund, National Economic Council (NEC) Director Kevin Hassett said Monday.
President Trump announced Friday that Intel agreed to give the federal government a 10 percent stake in the struggling company in exchange for money previously allocated under the Biden-era CHIPS and Science Act.
In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Hassett made clear the government does not have voting shares in the company, “so there’s not going to be government intrusion into the business of Intel.”
“It’s more like a down payment on a sovereign wealth fund, which many, many countries have,” Hassett continued.
Hassett described the Intel deal as a “special circumstance” but said the public should expect similar types of deals with companies going forward.
“The president has made it clear all the way back to the campaign, that he thinks that in the end, it would be great if the U.S. could start to build up a sovereign wealth fund,” Hassett said. “So I’m sure that, at some point, there’ll be more transactions — if not in this industry, in other industries.”
Co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin pressed Hassett on whether CEOs watching the interview should say to themselves, “Okay, the sovereign wealth fund may be coming and trying to effectively buy in some kind of equity stake.”
“It’s possible, yeah. That’s absolutely right,” Hassett responded. “In the past, the federal government has been given money away, lickety-split, to companies, and the taxpayers have received nothing in return. And so now, what’s happening with the Intel deal is the CHIPS Act money is going out as planned, but instead of it just going out and disappearing into the ether, the U.S. taxpayers are getting a little bit of equity.”
Trump on Monday similarly suggested more deals could be forthcoming.
“Yeah, there will be other cases, or if I have that opportunity again, I would do that. Then you do have stupid people say, ‘Oh that’s a shame,’” Trump said. “It’s not a shame. It’s called business.”
