7d ago

Trump administration in talks to take Intel stake, reports say

www.axios.com

Just a moment...

The U.S. government has been holding discussions on taking an equity stake in the chip maker Intel, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

Archive: https://archive.is/1EOAh

21 comments

Yet it was the black guy who they called a socialist....
- I'd generally rather not have the government involved in an ownership position in the market, but my guess is that:
  The US considers having a domestic (and second global) fab operator to be a national security priority. This would not be terribly surprising and would be in line with US statements and actions regarding chip availability for some years now.
  Intel might not be dead without support, but they aren't doing so well. I suspect that they're going to get support from the federal government.
  One way that the government can get some kind of direct return is to get some ownership in return for support. As I recall, this was done with some of the US auto companies the second time they were bailed out. The US sold its ownership share later to recoup some of its money. kagis Yeah: https://www.nbcnews.com/businessmain/u-s-exits-gm-stake-taxpayers-lose-10-5-billion-2D11716261
  DETROIT — The U.S. government ended up losing $10.5 billion on the General Motors bailout, but it says the alternative would have been far worse.
  The Treasury Department sold its final shares of the Detroit auto giant Monday, recovering $39 billion of the $49.5 billion it spent to save the dying automaker at the height of the financial crisis five years ago.
  I don't know how this works, whether existing shareholders get diluted or what, but I suspect that it may be kinda the convention for this kind of situation.
  My guess is that if the US gets some ownership, it will probably sell it off later when and if Intel is on more solid ground.
  
  If I make a bad investment, I'm hosed. If these fucks make a bad investment, they use my money to prop up the market so they can sell high and then let it tank.
  I do not trust this administration to do anything more than cover their own and their donors, asses. Propping up a failing silicon fab company is a good way to set large sums of money on fire.
- I get the "haha funny" aspect of your comment, however, what is remotely socialist about this?
  
  Government do things, country get socialister.
  Government no do things, county get libertyer
  
  A democratic* government part-owning the means of production.
  Its not complex.
  *for now. Kinda.
Me, a socialist: nationalize critical industries
Also me: wait not like that
"FrEE mArKEt caPitLIsm"
lol they want to bankrupt it even faster don't they
- Exit Liquidity
YSK, The Nazis allowed private business although the worthwhile parts were mostly nationalized. Also, Nazis limited trade significantly under an autarky policy. Nazi Nationalization was directed at both labor goals, such as the German labor front Volkswagen, and strategic goals such as iron and steel.
Their fabs are useful to someone at some price point. The microcontroller that runs your dishwasher doesn't need TSMC N3. Now, the investments Intel has made into their fabs probably can't turn a profit by selling to other customers, and nobody wants their CPUs.
Note that Intel Core Ultra processors aren't on Intel's own nodes, but rather on TSMC N3B. The AMD 9000 series are on TSMC 4nm. Intel is technically on a better node, but you wouldn't know it from any benchmarks on speed or power usage. AMD has a fundamental engineering advantage in CPU design at this point, and they're able to overcome a transistor density disadvantage.
Nor does anyone care about getting an x86 license. The companies that want to build top end CPUs on their own are looking at ARM and RISC-V. Someone could have bought Via if they wanted an x86 license. Nvidia could buy it with loose change Jensen found in his couch. Nobody cares.
So that leaves the manufacturing nodes as the major asset anyone would want, but it has to come at a discounted price for the expected discounted revenue. Intel does some other stuff, too, of course, but nothing that can prop the whole company up. Current Intel shareholders will never see a return on investment, but fabs are still useful.
Long f*cking live AMD.

21 comments