Did a friendly Oval Office handshake just nudge the semiconductor market? Late Thursday, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he’d “just finished a great meeting with the very successful Intel CEO, Lip‑Bu Tan,” and investors promptly cheered.
A spike on Truth Social
Intel shares climbed in after‑hours trading and extended gains into early premarket Friday after the post. Trump called the rollout of Intel’s newest CPU — what he described as “the first SUB 2 NANOMETER CPU PROCESSOR designed, built, and packaged right here in the U.S.A.” — a win for American manufacturing, and he pointed to the government’s investment in Intel as proof of that success: “The United States Government is proud to be a Shareholder of Intel, and has already made, through its U.S.A. ownership position, Tens of Billions of Dollars for the American People — IN JUST FOUR MONTHS,” he wrote.
Intel’s CEO Lip‑Bu Tan responded on social media, thanking the president and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for their support and noting that Intel is shipping the Core Ultra Series 3 processors built on the company’s Intel 18A process. The new processors — billed as the company’s first major product on Intel 18A — are positioned as AI‑capable PC chips. According to company briefings, top SKUs can offer up to 16 CPU cores, 12 Xe graphics cores and as much as 50 NPU TOPS for on‑device AI workloads, with Intel promising significant boosts in multi‑threaded performance and battery life for laptops.
Market reaction and the economics behind it
The price action reflects more than a presidential thumbs‑up. In August the U.S. government purchased 433.3 million Intel shares for $8.9 billion under programs intended to reshore chipmaking. That 10% stake has appreciated markedly: the government’s holding is now worth roughly $18–$19 billion, depending on intraday prices, and Intel’s stock has more than doubled since the investment was announced. Other chip names — from Broadcom and Micron to AMD — also nudged higher on the spillover effect, while European equipment makers such as ASML and ASMI benefited from renewed optimism about demand for advanced fabs.
The bounce is partly technical (good headlines, fresh buying) and partly structural: the industry is still digesting the acceleration of AI compute needs. Advanced CPUs and accelerators are suddenly more than nice‑to‑have; they’re the plumbing for a lot of the new software stack. That’s visible not just in chipmakers’ share moves but in the parallel development of AI tooling and infrastructure — from new model families to experimental data‑center projects — which together increase appetite for silicon at every layer. For a sense of that broader demand story, see how cloud and model plays continue to push hardware requirements forward in pieces like Microsoft’s MAI‑Image‑1 announcement and Google’s ambitious plans for dispersed AI datacenters in Project Suncatcher.
Politics, past friction and a quick pivot
The makeover in tone between the administration and Tan is notable. Just weeks before the White House investment was announced, Mr. Trump had criticized Tan publicly, at one point calling for his resignation amid questions raised by Senator Tom Cotton about Tan’s past business ties to China. The relationship has since shifted: the administration’s cash infusion effectively made the U.S. government Intel’s largest shareholder and ushered in a chapter of explicit backing for on‑shore manufacturing.
That support is part industrial policy, part investor intervention. Washington’s goal is clear: rebuild a domestic supply chain for leading‑edge chips and reduce strategic exposure overseas. For Intel — which endured leadership churn and tough financials prior to Tan’s appointment — the infusion offered breathing room and a public‑policy halo that now seems to be helping restore investor confidence.
What this means for devices and buyers
Practically, the most immediate consumer signal is Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 shipping cadence: preorders and staged shipments are expected to put these chips into laptops in coming months, with broader availability later in the year. If Intel’s claims hold — faster multitasking, stronger gaming performance and improved battery life on AI‑enabled tasks — PC makers will have a fresh silicon option to pitch against ARM‑based and Apple silicon machines. For readers wondering how these new Windows‑based machines will stack up against an Apple platform, the MacBook remains a common comparison point — you can check the latest MacBook models available on Amazon.
The short run for investors is headline‑driven. In the medium run, though, this episode underscores how policy, geopolitics and product roadmaps are now tightly coupled in semiconductors: a single White House meeting can ripple through markets, public ownership stakes change incentives, and the race to supply AI compute is turning corporate strategy into a national priority. That mix is likely to keep headlines — and volatility — coming.