President Trump Acquires 10% Stake In Intel For United States — Good Move or Socialism?

Glenn Beck:
I’d love to open, openly embrace the… You know, on the surface, there’s a new deal with Intel, and it sounds really smart, and it sounds like, yeah, that’s the way we should do business. It sounds capitalist, it sounds patriotic, but then again, so did the Patriot Act.

So here’s what’s happening. Donald Trump is taking $8.9 billion, money already set aside by the CHIPS Act, and instead of handing it to Intel as a grant, he bought stock in Intel. Now, that sounds really smart, right? Sounds like what a businessman would do. Really smart. “I’m not gonna just give them the money, we’ll invest, and that way, we get some profits when they succeed.”

So we now own 10% of the company, non-voting shares. We got it at a discount, and we have $2 billion now worth of paper gains. I love that, right? It sounds really good. Why aren’t we running this place more like a business? It’s pro-capitalist, right? No more government giveaways, taxpayers are investors, and we benefit when Intel rebounds. Okay.

Any other things? Well, yeah, it’s really important for national security—we’re keeping chip manufacturing at home. We stabilize the economy without running it, we reassure the markets and attract other private investors. On paper, it’s really good. It’s clean, it’s efficient, it’s savvy.

Now, what is it that’s bothering me? Well, it’s not exactly the American system. In fact, it might be everything we’re not supposed to do. You know, we were never—the government was never supposed to use our taxpayer dollars to be a shareholder in private enterprise. But again, we’re doing all kinds of things… we’ve already gone there, haven’t we? Hasn’t the government picked winners and losers now forever? Haven’t they been wasting your money?

I’d rather—instead of a grant—I’d rather have it in stock so if we win, we win. You know, we all win. But that’s actually the model of state capitalism in China. It’s not the free market in the United States. Intel is vital, absolutely vital. Chips are the lifeblood of anything that’s gonna happen for national security and our economy, but we cannot get into the habit of—uh—we can’t normalize in any way Washington DC buying stock in struggling companies.

You know, ’cause what’s next? Ford? Boeing? How about your grocery stores? I mean, that’s Mamdani, isn’t it? And once that door opens, government no longer just regulates the market, they own a piece of it. Now, what happens after we own a piece of that? So in 2008, I had a big sponsor.

It was a sponsor that Premier Radio Networks had worked 20 years to get. We finally landed them, and I had a good working relationship. It was General Motors. And then the government bailed them out in 2008, and they promised it was temporary, and I said, “Great. Call me back once you’ve paid them off. I don’t, I don’t like this. The government should not be involved.”

And they said, “Well, they’re not gonna be involved.” But they were, because the first thing they did was they canceled the hydrogen car, something they really believed in right before the election. I know because I was talking to ’em about it all the time. And then after the election, Barack Obama cancels all hydrogen products and GM is like, “Yeah, that stupid hydrogen thing. We’re with them.” And the precedent was set, and I was out.

I was out. I canceled General Motors. Business wise, stupid. Ethically, the right thing to do. And ever since, whenever there’s a crisis, that temptation is there. Why not just buy a slice of the company? Why not stabilize it, make a little profit on it? And that’s how you slip from capitalism to corporatism.

You know, free markets backed by government winners and losers. You do not want to go down this road. You know, when we are both the investor and the regulator, which one wins? Come on, not a hard question to answer. Which one wins? Not the regulator. The investor wins. If the investor is also the regulator, “Look, if we do this, we’re gonna make a lot of money. You’re gonna make a lot of money. You’ll have more money for all these projects you want.”

“Okay. All right. Okay.” It’s not—the taxpayers aren’t the one. The company, the politicians, who really wins? What happens when an administration leans on its own company for political purposes? “You know what? I think you’re gonna get rid of that hydrogen car.” “We love the hydrogen car.” “You know what? I think you’re gonna get rid of that hydrogen car.” “We hate that hydrogen car. Boy, we hate it.”

Donald Trump looks at Intel losing $8.8 billion last year, lays off 20,000 workers, chokehold of Taiwan, South Korea on semiconductors. He wants America protected, he wants taxpayers to share in the upside. He doesn’t want us just to bear the cost. “We should, we should get the upside.” All of those things are good, right? It’s really tempting. But is it what we are supposed to do? Is it the right thing?

I don’t like it when Washington holds stock certificates. Not a good thing. It should be reforming taxes, cutting red tape, letting capital flow to strong ideas, making sure national security is secured through policy, but not ownership of these things. Are you comfortable if the United States just took over AI, or just took it over and said, “We’re just gonna own 10%?

“Oh, they need another bailout. We’re gonna just own 20%. Oh, they need another bailout. Okay, we’re gonna own 40% of that.” Do you think that that company wouldn’t become beholden to the United States government? And who are they beholden to? The Defense Department? The Deep State? The President? Or you?

I think you know the answer.

Glenn Beck:
Stu, how do you work around this one? ‘Cause I love this idea, I love the fact that we’re running things like a business, and if we’re gonna give people loans, why not take a stake? Why not?

Stu:
Well, first of all, can we step back one little bit and just acknowledge that the original sin here in the first place was the CHIPS Act. Like, the CHIPS Act was not a good bill in the first place, and that’s not the current president’s fault. But, you know, he has to live under that law, and he’s trying to improve it.

But that was a disaster in the first place and should not have been something that we did, certainly in the way that we did it. With buying into this, I mean, look, I understand it is better to have some of this money that, by the way, we’re just borrowing and printing anyway, right? Like, these are taxpayer dollars that we don’t really have, that we’re spending on something that it’s good that potentially we’d have a return.

I mean, this was the argument under TARP as well, right? Where we would go and we would do all this and we would take control of some of these banks and companies and they would eventually pay us back. And many of them did, by the way. Many of them did pay us back. Yes, they did, with interest. With interest. With interest, yeah, exactly.

And so why not? Why don’t we do that? We have done it from time to time. Normally, it’s been in extreme circumstances, right? When there’s an emergency going on. And I will acknowledge, and I think you were on this as well, Glenn, these were not things that we supported at the time, but they were things that the government did at the time in what they saw as a time of financial crisis and reached in and took ownership of a bunch of these companies.

Glenn Beck:
I would say we went further than not being for them.

Stu:
I would agree with that analysis.

Glenn Beck:
We were very much against them.

Stu:
Very much against them. The reason for that is we don’t want the government involved in jumping into companies and micromanaging companies. Now, they’ll say they have no voting rights, they’ll say all sorts of things—

Glenn Beck:
Uh-huh.

Stu:
—but we now have a situation where the President of the United States has an interest in Intel’s stock price. And, like, I don’t know that that’s—

Glenn Beck:
Money doesn’t talk, it screams.

Stu:
Yeah. It’s a bad idea. It’s a bad idea. And I—you know, once the government becomes your partner in business, they’re always your partner. Always.

Glenn Beck:
Mm-hmm.

Stu:
And I understand where the President’s coming from because at some level, it really is important to acknowledge he’s been put in this position to try to make the best out of a bad thing. Now, I know the President does really care about the chips and he does care about these industries being here in the United States.

That is something that actually is legitimately important. I’m not denying that.

Glenn Beck:
But—

Stu:
Right, right. He also cares about America doing well, financially. He’s tired of America getting screwed, the taxpayers getting screwed every time.

Glenn Beck:
Yep.

Stu:
Look, but on that point, ’cause I get what he’s saying there, it would be great, like, we’re up a couple billion dollars. Let’s say we double our profit. Let’s say we make $10 billion off the deal. Nothing wrong with making $10 billion.

Let’s acknowledge what this is, though. We have $37 trillion of debt. Making $10 billion does absolutely nothing to this, nothing. If we’re gonna waste that, like, we could just instead have someone actually look at the next spending bill we have and just cut a few things around the corner and easily save $10 billion.

The only way that this makes any impact, and this is what makes me nervous, is if you do it at scale. If you start doing this in every single company you can think of that is having problems or is in an industry of interest to the United States of America, then you start getting to a place where the government is in bed with lots of businesses, and maybe you could make a financial impact.

So—and if we accept this argument now, I’m afraid we accept it then, too.

Glenn Beck:
Right. Haven’t we already accepted it when America embraced public-private partnerships?

Stu:
I haven’t accepted that.

Glenn Beck:
Right.

Stu:
I am dead set against public—

Glenn Beck:
But isn’t this a public-private partnership that the left is already—? I mean, this is what they were pushing.

Stu:
Well, and this is the concern, right? Who is cheering this on? Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders actually had this idea as an amendment in the CHIPS Act. This was his proposal. He’s cheering it on right now.

Glenn Beck:
That doesn’t mean that everything a Democrat brings up is the wrong idea. Maybe this is a good one.

Stu:
Well, I mean, you could make that argument, but—

Glenn Beck:
Is he a Democrat or is he a socialist?

Stu:
Well, he’s a socialist.

Glenn Beck:
Yeah.

Stu:
So, everything a socialist brings up—

Glenn Beck:
Usually a bad idea.

Stu:
Probably a good bet, is my take. Again, it’s just a road we should really, really be careful going down. I would argue we shouldn’t go down it, because it does lead to bad things. And it leads to bad things, by the way, when this president’s long gone.

It’s not just him. But what are Democrats gonna do with this newfound ability to invest in companies? And by the way, we should note, Intel doesn’t need to accept this.

This is—the CHIPS Act doesn’t require them to sell part of the company. What’s happening here is we’re pressuring them into this. And I understand the reasoning for that. You brought up really good arguments on this front.

We’re already suckered into giving these companies money because of the CHIPS Act. Why not make the situation better? And Intel is saying, “Well, they can make our lives miserable in 25 different ways. Let’s partner with them.” I get it on both sides.

It doesn’t mean it should be a foundational part of our economy going forward. And if this is a one-time thing, it’s probably not gonna be that big of a deal. If this is a precedent that goes on, it can be. It will be. Once you start this, once you start this…

Glenn Beck:
And you know, my whole life I’ve said, “I wish we had a businessman as the president.” I wish we had somebody that would look at the country and look at everything and go, “How can we make money? How can we save money? Let’s run this a tighter ship.”

Well, he’s doing that, although we’re spending more money. And here he’s like, “Well, let’s just offset. Let’s, you know, let’s get—”

Stu:
Yeah.

Glenn Beck:
And he might pick the winner. I don’t know if he will or not. But he might pick the winner.

But tell me the last president that we had that ever said anything about industry, they’re like, “Oh, you know what? That was a really good stock tip.” No.

Glenn Beck:
No, that’s not what presidents are supposed to do. Presidents are not supposed to be looking at stocks and thinking, “Hey, we should invest in that.” That’s not the American system. The American system is, we create an environment where companies can thrive, where companies can succeed, where entrepreneurs can build something new and innovative.

The second the President of the United States starts acting like an investor, you know the line has been crossed. And it is one of those things where it sounds so good. It feels like, “Hey, this is finally common sense.” But common sense is not the Constitution. Common sense is not the framework of our country.

And you could look at this and say, “Well, it’s practical, it’s smart, it’s shrewd.” All those things might be true, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. That doesn’t mean it’s consistent with who we are supposed to be. You know, the Founders never wanted the government to be in the role of owning businesses.

They wanted the government to protect liberty, to protect contracts, to defend the nation. Not to be picking which companies win, not to be sitting on boards, not to be profiting off investments. That’s not capitalism—that’s state control.

And when you look at China, when you look at Russia, when you look at every authoritarian system in the world, what do they do? The government owns a stake in the companies. The government decides who wins and who loses. And then the companies are never independent. They’re always beholden.

They might make money, they might even innovate, but at the end of the day, their first allegiance is not to the shareholders, it’s not to the customers, it’s to the state. And the state says, “This is what you’re going to do, and you’re going to do it.” And if you don’t, they crush you.

That’s the danger here. It’s not about Intel. It’s not about chips. It’s about precedent. It’s about whether we are going to normalize something that looks, on the surface, like a smart business move, but underneath, it’s a step away from freedom and toward government control.

So yes, Intel is important. Yes, chips are vital. Yes, we need them made in America. But there are ways to do that—cut taxes, reduce regulations, incentivize innovation, unleash entrepreneurs. Don’t have Washington DC buying stock certificates with your tax dollars.

Because once they start, they won’t stop. And the next company, and the next industry, and before you know it, we don’t have capitalism anymore. We have corporatism. We have state-run enterprise with a free-market façade.

And that is not the America that the Founders built. That is not the America we want to leave to our children.

So, it might look smart. It might feel like common sense. But it is a very dangerous road, and we should not go down it.

Glenn Beck:
Because once you set that precedent, it never goes away. You can’t put that genie back in the bottle. Once the federal government says, “We’re investors now,” then every crisis becomes an excuse to do it again.

And the next president—maybe not Trump, maybe not somebody you trust—what happens when it’s someone you don’t trust, who decides, “Well, we’re just gonna start buying into every industry we want control over”? Do you really want that person holding stock in the food industry, in pharmaceuticals, in energy?

Think about the power that gives them. They don’t just regulate—they own. They don’t just incentivize—they control. And the companies that survive are the ones that play ball with the government. That’s not freedom. That’s not competition. That’s not America.

The reason we’ve thrived for so long is because the government hasn’t been sitting in the boardroom. Yes, they’ve over-regulated. Yes, they’ve meddled. But they weren’t literally shareholders. The second they become shareholders, they’re not impartial. They have skin in the game. And when government has skin in the game, it cheats to win.

So, on the surface—yeah, it looks smart. But underneath? It’s poison. And I’m telling you, if we don’t draw the line here, there won’t be a line left to draw.

That’s how freedom dies—not in one big, sweeping takeover, but in small, sensible-sounding steps. And this one sounds really sensible. But if you love liberty, if you love the Constitution, if you love the free market—you cannot accept it.

Not now. Not ever.

Because once that happens, the entire framework changes. Every politician who comes after will say, “Well, the government has a responsibility to manage these investments.” And when they say that, they’re not just talking about policy anymore. They’re talking about profit. They’re talking about leverage. They’re talking about power.

And when power and money mix in Washington, you never get your freedom back. It doesn’t happen. Look through history. Every time the government expands its reach, even in the smallest way, even for the noblest-sounding cause, it never contracts again. It grows. And it grows. And it grows.

We’ve seen this with Social Security. We’ve seen it with Medicare. We’ve seen it with welfare programs. We’ve seen it with federal agencies that were supposed to be temporary but became permanent bureaucracies that dominate entire sectors of our economy and culture.

This is why I’m warning you. On the surface, this deal with Intel looks fine. It looks even smart. But it’s not about Intel. It’s about whether America is going to take one more step toward becoming China. State capitalism is not capitalism. It’s control disguised as prosperity.

And once you tell the people, “Hey, this is for your benefit—we’re investing for you, we’re going to share the profits with you,” they’ll accept it. They’ll welcome it. They’ll cheer it on. But behind that cheer is the death of the free market. Behind that cheer is the end of real independence.

Because once the government is your partner, you’re never free again.

Stu:
That’s it. That’s the heart of it. And I think people need to remember, too—every time you look at a policy and it seems like a shortcut, it seems like the government’s figured out a clever trick, you’ve gotta ask yourself, “Okay, who really wins?” Because taxpayers don’t win. Politicians win. Companies that play nice with Washington win. And the precedent becomes the policy.

So maybe Intel bounces back. Maybe the government makes a little money. Maybe taxpayers see a paper gain. But what about the next time? And the time after that? And what happens when it’s no longer chips, it’s food, or transportation, or energy, or your healthcare?

That’s where this goes. And once it goes there, you don’t come back.

Glenn Beck:
Exactly. And look, I know some people are gonna say, “Oh, you’re just overreacting. It’s just one deal. It’s just Intel.” But go back through history. Find me one single time the government has done something like this once and walked away. Find me one time where they said, “Okay, we fixed it, we’re done.”

You won’t find it. Because the second they taste that power, the second they taste that profit, they will never let it go. And if you think Washington, D.C. can resist that temptation, you’re fooling yourself.

So yes, I understand why it feels good. I understand why people are tempted by it. But if you care about freedom, if you care about the Constitution, if you care about keeping this country from becoming another version of China—you have to say no.

This is not who we are. And if we let it become who we are, then we will lose the very thing that made America exceptional in the first place.

So enjoy the paper profits, enjoy the headlines, enjoy the moment of saying, “Oh, look, government’s finally acting like a business.” But know what’s really happening. Know the cost. Know the danger.

Because one day soon, you’ll wake up, and you won’t be living in a free-market America anymore. You’ll be living in a corporatist America. And once that happens, liberty doesn’t just slip away—it’s gone.