Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Wednesday criticized the Trump administration’s decision to take a 10% stake in embattled chipmaker Intel, calling the investment “a step towards socialism.”
Intel announced last month that the U.S. government made an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock, purchasing 433.3 million shares at a price of $20.47 per share, giving it a 10% stake in the company. Intel noted that the price the government paid was a discount to the current market price.
Paul said government ownership is “a bad idea.”
“It’s always a mistake to say, ‘Well we have this one bad policy, all right, we’ll tolerate a little socialism, but we don’t want anymore,” Paul told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. “I think it’s a bad idea.”
President Donald Trump said on Truth Social last month that the government’s stake in the chipmaker is a “great Deal for America, and, also, a great Deal for INTEL.”
Trump has taken an increasingly heavy hand in the private sector, raising concern among conservative lawmakers like Paul, who have long opposed big government. In August, the Trump administration said the government would take 15% of certain Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices chip sales to China. The Pentagon bought a $400 million equity stake in rare earth miner MP Materials. It also took a “golden share” in U.S. Steel as part of a deal to allow Nippon Steel to buy the U.S. industrial giant.
Among the most vocal supporters in Congress of Trump’s Intel deal has been independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist from Vermont. Sanders, a longtime and vocal Trump critic, told news outlets last month that, “Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return.”
But Paul said it’s not smart to involve the government in the free market.
“I worry that the free market movement, the movement that was a big part of the Republican Party, is being diminished over time,” Rand said.
White House spokesman Kush Desai defended Trump’s move, writing that “the Trump administration is ensuring that taxpayers are able to reap the upside of the federal government’s investments into safeguarding our national and economic security.”