This past week began with Donald Trump and his team making clear that they have plans to have the government take a 10% stake in Intel (INTC), the first of “many more cases.”
Officials then offered hints in the days that followed as to what sectors might be next.
Comments from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, among others, have seen trial balloons launched in areas from shipbuilding to defense contractors to the final form of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
And an outside observer — Darrell West of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution — offered a fourth possibility in a recent interview, suggesting that AI data centers could be an even more high-profile area that might be ripe for Trump’s emerging brand of government interventionism.
“Data centers are at risk because they need a tremendous amount of energy and they have to go through a permitting process that gives the government great leverage over them,” West said. “These companies are going to need government assistance to really operationalize these plans.”
Of course, how far Trump eventually tries to go remains to be seen. The president and his team have offered unbridled enthusiasm, promising deals “all day long.” Notably less enthusiasm has come from many in the business world and many Republicans.
The moves have even led to cries of socialism from some free-market conservatives who are allied with Trump in other areas but have grown increasingly vocal about the president’s broader willingness to interfere in corporate decision making.
But a bottom line appears to be that — if Trump wants to go further — he could have plenty of roads to choose from.
“The types of sectors ripe for equity investments are those that are ripe for industrial policy more broadly: products or activities that the rest of the economy relies on,” said Todd Tucker, the director of industrial policy and trade at the Roosevelt Institute.
Tucker acknowledged widespread worries that government investment will lead to distortion in markets. But he argues it is essentially a matter of degree, and years of increasing government involvement in the private sector means “the distortion on some level is already happening.”
Another key element — which even Trump has acknowledged — is the need for the government to have leverage.
This was clearly the case with Intel. The chipmaker came to the table as a struggling company already reliant on government largesse in a sector key to national security.
The deal was funded by billions of dollars already promised under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which former President Joe Biden signed into law. Trump’s move was to renegotiate that grant money into an equity stake.
“It’s called business,” Trump added Monday, saying Intel was willing to give up a stake and adding of other deals, “I want to try and get as much as I can.”
There is one area where further deals appear notably less likely: semiconductors.
That’s a reflection of how others in the sector — at least in relation to the troubled Intel — are clearly in a much stronger position.
“I don’t think Nvidia needs financial support,” Secretary Bessent deadpanned this week during a Fox Business appearance with Maria Bartiromo when asked about that chipmaker, which recently became the largest company in the world measured by market capitalization.
Meanwhile, Trump’s team has offered a few areas that are more top of mind.
Asked about other areas of administration interest during that Fox Business appearance, Secretary Bessent offered, “Could there be other industries that we’re reshaping? Something like shipbuilding? Sure.”
He added that the emerging potential privatization of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac — the government-sponsored enterprises that support the housing system — could also include the US keeping a share.
Trump is also “thinking” about taking an equity stake in defense companies, added Secretary Lutnick in another recent comment — this time on CNBC.
“There’s a monstrous discussion about defense,” Lutnick said, arguing that Lockheed Martin is already “basically an arm of the US government.”
West acknowledged that these defense companies indeed have a particular vulnerability.
“They basically have to say yes,” he said, noting he wasn’t sure what Trump would ask for but “they have to agree to whatever terms because if they don’t get government contracts, they go out of business.”
The emerging discussion around these possible next moves comes as Trump has shown little compunction about stepping into the day-to-day affairs of businesses to make them work more toward his benefit.
Trump has regularly threatened companies that have been critical of his tariff plans, telling them to “eat” the additional costs. As the president told Walmart (WMT) at one point, “I’ll be watching.”
The government also announced a plan to allow Nvidia (NVDA) to sell its H20 chips to China, on the condition that the government would get a 15% cut of sales — but that deal has not yet been finalized.
Trump’s team also acquired a “golden share” with key veto rights as part of the recent Nippon Steel purchase of US Steel.
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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