Softbank invests $2bn in Intel. The US government gets in but without voting rights

Intel, once synonymous with American technological leadership, is trying to recover after some difficult years. In recent days, two unexpected interlocutors have arrived to give it confidence: on the one hand, SoftBank, with a cheque for $2 billion. On the other, the White House, which is considering a direct entry into the capital.

The Japanese holding company led by Masayoshi Son will buy Intel shares at $23 each, just below market prices, securing about 2% of the capital. A modest stake, but enough to make it the group's sixth largest shareholder. The move fits in with Son's strategy of presiding over the race for artificial intelligence: after Arm and the 500 billion project for the Stargate maxi-datacenter, the move into Intel offers access to decisive production infrastructure. "Semiconductors are the foundation of every industry," explained Son, presenting the operation as a strategic investment before being a financial one.

For SoftBank, however, the calculation is also economic: Intel's capitalisation (over 100 billion) appears underestimated when compared with the value of its industrial and real estate assets. It is no coincidence that the stock gained as much as 11% on the announcement yesterday, while SoftBank left 4% on the ground in Tokyo.

If Tokyo is moving in industrial and geopolitical terms, Washington is instead looking at domestic economic policy. The Trump administration is considering converting up to USD 10.9 billion of the Chips and Science Act into a stake of around 10%, which would be worth the leadership among shareholders. It would be a change of pace from the subsidies decided under Biden: no more non-repayable transfers, but capital shares in exchange for already earmarked funds. 'This is not about governance,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick clarified, confirming to Cnbc the negotiations with Intel. 'We are simply converting what was a subsidy into capital. Why give billions to a 100 billion market cap company without a return for the taxpayers?" Any government participation, in effect, would be disenfranchised. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is cautious: 'The least of our goals is to force American companies to buy Intel chips. What is at stake is only stabilising the company and ensuring domestic production'. There is also a diplomatic value in the background: Tokyo is helping to strengthen an American industrial champion and in return hopes to stabilise trade relations with Trump (currently 15% tariffs).

For the Santa Clara giant, meanwhile, the numbers remain heavy. Q2 2025 ended with 2.9 billion in the red, following a record loss of 18.8 billion in 2024, the first since 1986. While revenues (12.9 billion) beat expectations, competitive pressure remains strong: AMD advances in servers, Nvidia dominates AI, and Taiwanese bigwig TSMC maintains manufacturing supremacy. CEO Lip-Bu Tan, installed in March after Pat Gelsinger's exit and initially attacked by Trump, has launched a drastic plan: to reduce the workforce to 75,000 by the end of the year (compared to almost 109,000 at the beginning of 2024), with more than 25,000 exits between redundancies and turnover blocks. Plans for new factories in Germany and Poland have been cancelled, while the construction of the large plant in Ohio is proceeding slowly. Assembly was moved from Costa Rica to Vietnam and Malaysia.