U.S. President Donald Trump said he wants to make more investments in healthy U.S. companies on Monday. Whether Corporate America is on board is another story. The White House announced a near-10% stake in chipmaker Intel on Friday that converts government grants into an equity share.
Trump doubled down on the idea of similar deals in other sectors on Monday, telling reporters at the White House, "I hope I'm going to have many more cases like it."
The administration's approach upends a decades-old view of the U.S. economy, in which the government only took corporate stakes in rare emergencies such as the 2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent bailout of U.S. auto companies. Intel is struggling, but still has a cash cushion of $9 billion and a market value of $105 billion.
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