United States Senator Bernie Sanders has thrown his support behind US President Donald Trump’s plan to convert US grants to chipmakers, including $10.9bn for Intel, into government stakes in the companies.
The senator for the state of Vermont announced his support on Wednesday.
“If microchip companies make a profit from the generous grants they receive from the federal government, the taxpayers of America have a right to a reasonable return on that investment,” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement to the Reuters news agency.
The awards were part of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which sought to lure chip production away from Asia and boost American domestic semiconductor output with $39bn in subsidies.
The acronym CHIPS in the name of the legislation stands for “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors”.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is now looking into the government taking equity stakes in embattled Intel and other chipmakers in exchange for the grants as the Trump administration seeks “equity” in return for “investments”.
The unusual alignment between Sanders and Trump on government ownership stakes in private companies highlights a marked shift by Trump toward policies of state intervention in the economy that are typically associated with the left.
Since Trump took office for a second time in January, he agreed to allow AI chip giants Nvidia and AMD to sell AI chips to China in exchange for the US government receiving 15 percent of revenues from the sales.
The Pentagon is also set to become the largest shareholder in a small mining company to boost the output of rare earth magnets. And the US government negotiated for itself a “golden share” with certain veto rights as part of a deal to allow Nippon Steel to buy US Steel.
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