Comment by sgnelson
12 hours ago
Everyone is talking about "bailouts" and "owning a company that the government funds."
This isn't about that at all. This is about the breakdown of the rule of law, a unitary executive bypassing all other branches of government and demanding a private enterprise give itself over to the government.
If you don't think there was an "or else" as part of this deal, you're largely mistaken. If you don't think that there will be other questionalbe demands placed on Intel in the future from this government, you are largely mistaken.
But y'all go ahead and can keep arguing over whether we should "get something back" from this deal. Because that's really going to maker ameraica graet agian.
“National security” is often used by third world countries to nationalise companies and industries. Often with a bad outcome.
Once the money is in, government becomes invested in the success of the company. This leads to preferential policies and government demands for the invested company. I think it is safe to say that US is going full on third world strong man government at this point.
> unitary executive bypassing all other branches of government
Is there even a pretence of a law being cited by the White House?
...thats how the US Constitution works. Congress passes laws (CHIPS Act) and the executive branch is empowered to carry them out - in this case the Secretary of Commerce and Commerce Dept. One can argue whether it stretches the intent of the law, nothing wrong with debate. But as of now, I don't think any judge or court has contested in the interpretation of the language.
Which part of the CHIPS act says companies receiving funds have to give the government 10% of the company to continue receiving funds?
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> as of now, I don't think any judge or court has contested in the interpretation of the language
Who has standing to sue here? The best I could see is a shareholder lawsuit, but that will take years. Meanwhile, this administration is getting slapped down by courts across the country, including a SCOTUS willing to overturn precedent to curry his favour.
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Unfortunately, this ship sailed quite some time ago. For example, after the 2008 financial crisis, the Senate rejected a proposed bailout of GM. But Bush approved it anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_2008%E2%80%9320...
> However, it had been argued that the Treasury lacked the statutory authority to direct TARP funds to the automakers, since TARP is limited to "financial institutions" under Section 102 of the TARP. It was also argued that providing TARP funds to automaker's financing operations, such as GMAC, runs counter to the intent of Congress for limiting TARP funds to true "financial institutions".[79] On December 19, 2008, President Bush used his executive authority to declare that TARP funds may be spent on any program he personally deems necessary to avert the financial crisis, and declared Section 102 to be nonbinding.
Also, “unitary executive” doesn’t mean overriding other branches. It just means that whatever powers the executive branch does or does not have are exercised by the President, just like the 535 members of Congress exercise all the powers of Congress, and the 9 Justices exercise all of the powers of the Supreme Court. It means that executive branch employees don’t have independent powers, just as House staffers and Supreme Court law clerks don’t have independent powers.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._70 (“Federalist No. 70 emphasizes the unitary structure of the executive. The strong executive must be unitary, Hamilton says, because ‘unity is conducive to energy...[d]ecision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number.’”).
>Also, “unitary executive” doesn’t mean overriding other branches
I feel we're headed for a No True Scotsman fallacy. The Trump Regime and Roberts court endorse the unitary executive theory, and they are happily overriding Article 1 powers and violating laws like the Administrative Procedures Act based on this theory's farcical and ahistorical logic.
If the theory wasn't giving him more power (like firing non-political appointees without cause or withholding funds appropriated by Congress) he wouldn't be using it.
The "unitary executive theory" is just a pejorative label for Article II, Section 1, Clause 1: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." Alexander Hamilton talks about it in Federalist 70: "I rarely met with an intelligent man from any of the States, who did not admit, as the result of experience, that the UNITY of the executive of this State was one of the best of the distinguishing features of our constitution." (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed70.asp).
Nobody called it a "theory" until FDR appointees ginned up a fourth branch of government in the 20th century. Then, they needed a label for what actually existed in the constitution to distinguish it from the shit they just made up. But most of the people who use the phrase "unitary executive theory" also think "emanations from penumbras" is constitutional law...
Also, the APA doesn't apply to the President, and it wouldn't be constitutional for it to do so.
> Also, “unitary executive” doesn’t mean overriding other branches. It just means that whatever powers the executive branch does or does not have are exercised by the President,
And then you find the executive is what chooses to enforce rulings against the executive. They were not trying to set up something like the UN security council with a defacto veto on all passed law.
What Trump is doing is pure extortion. Intel gives up equity, and in exchange, Trump maybe doesn't use the massive power of the state to claw back billions of dollars that were legally awarded to Intel, and Trump stops pressuring Intel to fire their CEO (note how he now calls the CEO "highly respected").
The comparison to the GM bailout makes no sense. GM got something that it needed from the bailout. Here, all Intel is getting is the withdrawal of threats that Trump himself made. It's mob boss style government, and it's happening to many institutions in this country (law firms, universities, corporations, etc). Why you would want to try to normalize it is utterly beyond me. Maybe you just like being the "well actually" guy because you think it makes you sound smarter than everyone else.
I’m not a “well actually” guy, I’m a constitutional fundamentalist. It’s definitionally not extortion to threaten to do something you have a legal right to do. The CHIPs Act gave the executive a bunch of money for making discretionary grants. And that means the President has a bunch of money to make discretionary grants.
Also, why should we give companies money without getting equity?
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> This is about the breakdown of the rule of law
Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.
The "or else' isn't the problem. The problem is the government trying to get involved in the first place. Intel was not forced to give away 10% of their company for 10 billion dollars, they simply wanted the 10 billion dollars. It's the fault of our government for propping up failing companies. Intel should be dying instead.
Intel may well have wanted to donate some ownership more than it wanted 10 billion dollars. They are now in a position to argue forever that what's good for Intel is good for the federal government.
> They are now in a position to argue forever that what's good for Intel is good for the federal government
What does that even give you? They can argue all they want. Doesn't mean the government will listen.
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This will scare off foreign investment. Especially pharma which can be considered national security. Why would I invest billions in the US to risk having my factories taken by the US government when the market in India or China is way bigger and the risk at this time seems a lot less.
Why would the government need to "demand" to buy a piece of a publicly-traded company? Is 10% of Intel more than what is being traded in the public market?
As I understand it, the government didn't pay anything for these shares.
Why does this keep coming up?
They're paying the rest of the CHIPS Act money. Overall, they're putting in over $10B into Intel.
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"purchasing 433.3 million shares at a price of $20.47 per share" in the article. That was the price a day or so ago
Straight up blackmail. It was my immediate thought, and nothing I’ve since it was announced has changed my opinion.
> is about the breakdown of the rule of law, a unitary executive bypassing all other branches of government and demanding a private enterprise give itself over to the government.
What do you think about Senator Bernie Sanders backing Trump plan for government stake in Intel?
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/8/20/us-senator-berni...
It's odd seeing Republicans endorse state owned companies. Bernie has at least been consistent in his beliefs.
> It's odd seeing Republicans endorse state owned companies.
What’s even more confusing is that the Republicans voter will rationalize this!
> Bernie has at least been consistent in his beliefs.
So same outcome. The question is whether the two “sides” see their common point of view.
I'm glad Sanders never made it past senator. If only Trump never made it past casino owner.
Trump was explicit about the "or else" part. He said publicly that Intel did it because "[the CEO] wanted to keep his job," a reference to Trump's earlier pressure for him to be fired due to his vulnerability to pressure from the CCP.