By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and ELAINE KURTENBACH

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday confirmed the U.S. government is vying for a 10% stake in Silicon Valley pioneer Intel in an unusual deal that would deepen the Trump administration’s financial ties with major computer chip manufacturers and punctuate a dramatic about-face from the president’s recent push to oust the company’s CEO.

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The ambitions that Lutnick confirmed in a televised interview with CNBC came the day after various news outlets reported on the negotiations between the Trump administration and Intel. The investment would be made by converting federal government grants previously pledged under President Joe Biden’s administration into a bushel of Intel stock that would turn the U.S. government into one of the company’s largest shareholders.

“We think America should get the benefit of the bargain,” Lutnick told CNBC as he explained why President Donald Trump is pushing for the deal. “It’s obvious that it’s the right move to make.”

Intel declined to comment on the negotiations with the Trump administration.

The notion of the U.S. government holding a huge stake in Intel would have seemed inconceivable back in the company’s heyday when its processors were powering a personal computer boom that began in the mid-1970s. But Intel has been mired in tough times after missing mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhone’s 2007 debut.

Intel has fall even farther behind in recent years during an artificial intelligence craze that has been a boon for two of its once-smaller rivals, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices. The Trump administration is hitching a ride on their success by imposing a 15% commission on their sales of their chip sales in China in exchange for their export licenses. Those fees are expected to translate into billions of dollars in additional government revenue.

The U.S. government’s negotiations to become a major Intel shareholder are coming on a heels of a $2 billion investment Japanese technology giant SoftBank Group disclosed late Monday that it plans to make in the Santa Clara, California, company. Softbank is accumulating its 2% stake in Intel at $23 per share — a slight discount from the stock’s price when its investment was announced.

Intel’s shares surged nearly 7% to close at $25.31 on the news of Softbank’s big bet on Intel, coupled with Trump’s designs on the company.

FILE – The logo of Japanese mobile provider SoftBank is seen at its shop in Tokyo on June 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama, File)

SoftBank invests in an array of companies that it sees as holding long-term potential. It has been stepping up investments in the United States since Trump returned to the White House. In February, its chairman Masayoshi Son joined Trump, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle in announcing a major investment of up to $500 billion in a project to develop artificial intelligence called Stargate.

“Semiconductors are the foundation of every industry, Son said in a statement. ”This strategic investment reflects our belief that advanced semiconductor manufacturing and supply will further expand in the United States, with Intel playing a critical role.”

Trump’s interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world since he returned to the White House earlier this year for his second term in office. “We want Intel to be successful in America,” Lutnick said during his CNBC interview.

Boosting domestic production of computer chips also ranked high on the Biden administration’s agenda, which resulted in the 2022 passage of the CHIPS and Science Act.

Intel was among the biggest beneficiaries of the program, but it hasn’t been able to revive its fortunes while falling behind on construction projects spawned by the CHIPS program. The company has received about $2.2 billion of the $7.8 billion pledged under the incentives program — money that Lutnick derided as a “giveaway” that would better serve U.S. taxpayers if it’s turned into Intel stock, which he said would be in the form of non-voting shares so the government wouldn’t be able to use the stake to sway how the company is managed.

But Intel’s ongoing struggles also means the U.S. government is taking on a risky investment. The company is in the midst of its latest turnaround attempt under CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who was hired in March to shake things up. Tan’s turnaround effort so far has been focused on a cost-cutting spree that is gutting the company’s workforce and further delaying construction on a chip plant in Ohio that has been in the works since 2022.

Intel’s market value is hovering around $110 billion, only a slight uptick from where it was when Tan arrived and leaving it more than 60% below its peak reached about a quarter-century ago during the early phase of the internet boom.

In another strange twist to the new alliance, President Donald Trump had demanded that Tan resign in an August 7 post spurred by concerns about investments that Tan had made in China chipmakers while he was working as a venture capitalist.

FILE – Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan delivers a speech during the Computex 2025 exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

But Trump backed off after the Malyasia-born Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an “amazing story.” That truce apparently sparked the negotiations that may culminate in the U.S. government owning a chunk of Intel.

Although rare, it’s not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM.

Kurtenbach reported from Bangkok.

By ERIC TUCKER, AAMER MADHANI and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has ordered the revocation of the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials, including some who worked on the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it by name.

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A memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was seen by The Associated Press, accuses the targeted individuals of having engaged in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance personal or partisan gain.

It’s the latest action of retribution by the Trump administration against national security officials he perceives as having been against him. It comes as his government has launched a sweeping effort to cast doubt on the legitimacy of intelligence community findings that Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.

“Investing in clean energy, built by skilled, safe union workers, can create the triple win of lower energy costs, good-paying jobs, and stronger communities.”

Gov. Kathy Hochul at a press conference about offshore wind opportunities in 2022. (Flickr/Governor Kathy Hochul)

Extreme heat this summer has caused rolling blackouts across New York City. From Staten Island to Queens, families were not only left sweltering, but also wondering—why? Even though we are the nation’s largest city by population, a world capital, a global leader in so many ways, we continue to rely on an outdated energy grid without enough local power supply.

As conflict entangles the globe, we face the risk of supply interruptions and spiking oil and gas prices here at home. This doesn’t have to be the case, yet we continue to rely on volatile foreign markets for our own energy security.

Big crises are also big opportunities. So amid all of this political uncertainty, it’s worth imagining what it would look like to achieve real stability and independence for our energy system—a grid with abundant and reliable power that doesn’t pollute our neighborhoods or fail to meet demand on the hottest day of the year; an energy supply free from the volatility and uncertainty of foreign sources; and an energy industry that creates good union jobs for working people, so that more Americans can live with dignity and prosperity.

The good news is that I see this vision coming into reality here in New York. I proudly represent more than 45,000 union brothers and sisters in the Laborers’ Eastern Region. These are the skilled workers who are building clean energy projects—from wind turbines to solar panels and soon, the nation’s first new nuclear generation facility in over 15 years. By building this critical infrastructure with union labor, New York is taking an “all of the above” path towards a clean energy transition and making sure our energy future benefits workers in our state.

That is the good news, but the scary news is that just as energy demand is rising, federal lawmakers have decided to slam the brakes on domestic energy development.

Congress passed, and President Donald Trump signed into law, a budget reconciliation bill that abruptly ends clean energy tax credits. It’s a policy decision that is poised to kill thousands of jobs, stop new domestic energy projects in their tracks, and raise household electricity costs in New York by over $470 a year for the average household.

Higher prices, fewer jobs, and less homegrown energy spells the exact opposite of energy independence, but that’s just what the Republican-led leadership in Washington, DC has done.

Now, it is up to states like ours to step up and lead the way to an energy-independent future that provides New Yorkers with affordable, reliable power and creates family-supporting union jobs. We must use state policy and funding to fill the gaps this federal budget has left.

New York State must continue to pursue our ambitious clean energy and emissions reduction targets. We must authorize and support new clean energy projects, built with strong labor standards that ensure quality construction and protect workers.

I know these are divisive times, but don’t we all want affordable and reliable energy powered by hard-working Americans? Can we not agree that we should end power outages and spiking energy bills?

Union workers know the answers to these questions. It’s why our training programs offer classes in solar, wind, and geothermal technologies—the energy sources of the future. It’s also why we’re proud to be building ports like Arthur Kill Terminal in Staten Island and South Brooklyn Marine Terminal to support local offshore wind projects.

In densely populated downstate areas without much open land to build on, we understand the need to harness the abundant winds blowing across our oceans to deliver clean power to our grid. Clean energy technologies are the quickest energy source to deploy domestically. 

New York must keep building homegrown clean energy because it’s the only way to achieve true energy independence. Yes, the federal government has just made it harder to invest in greener, more reliable energy, but New York was a clean energy leader before these federal tax credits were enacted, and we can continue to be one after they are eliminated. 

In New York, we’re all too familiar with heat-induced blackouts and energy bills that make your eyes pop. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Investing in clean energy, built by skilled, safe union workers, can create the triple win of lower energy costs, good-paying jobs, and stronger communities. It can free us of this status quo and bring us into a better future—a future of energy independence. New York State must take up the mantle of leadership to make it happen.

Mike Hellstrom serves as vice president and eastern regional manager of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) serving New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Puerto Rico.

The post Opinion: New York Must Step Up As a Clean Energy Leader in the Face of Federal Cuts appeared first on City Limits.

The grounds of the Minnesota State Fair in Falcon Heights were a beehive of activity Tuesday, as workers and volunteers prepared for the Fair’s opening day on Thursday. The Fair runs through Labor Day.