Trump has forced the Mag7 into bailing out Intel, but it’s not going the way he wants

The Trump White House has assisted Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) in making a comeback through the use of the largest names in technology in the country, but things may not be going as well as he would like. These names include Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), and Elon Musk’s SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX).

As Cryptopolitan has been reporting over the past year and a half, Washington has become Intel’s biggest owner. The rescue has lifted the stock, protected factory spending, and given the company partners. It has not yet delivered the one thing Intel needs most: large outside customers paying to use its factories.

Intel shares have risen more than four times since Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan took charge in March 2025. Better demand for processors helped, but federal support and Lip-Bu’s internal cleanup also played roles. Intel opened Friday down 2.5% at $109.68.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SOXX) lost 0.6%, while Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD) gained 1.3% and Nvidia climbed 1.7%. Intel was the only chip name trading lower.

Trump presses Apple, Nvidia, and SpaceX to put money and business into Intel

President Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick spoke with Apple CEO Tim Cook last year while the administration considered tariffs on imported semiconductors.

Trump and Howard wanted Apple to use Intel’s American plants. Apple later avoided those proposed duties after promising more spending in the United States. The iPhone maker is now preparing to let Intel produce selected chips for Mac computers and iPhones.

The federal government went much further than making introductions. It changed $9 billion in grants into a 10% Intel stake, making Washington the company’s largest shareholder. The arrangement gave the government a level of ownership rarely seen in a major American technology business.

Officials also encouraged Intel to work more closely with Nvidia and SpaceX. They kept speaking with Intel executives as the company added factory capacity and tried to repair its manufacturing arm.

Private money followed. Nvidia put $5 billion into Intel, while SoftBank Group (TYO: 9984) invested another $2 billion. That cash let Intel keep buying equipment instead of cutting its capital budget.

Lip-Bu also rebuilt parts of the business. He changed how the engineering teams were run, hired leaders from Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930) and SK Hynix (KRX: 000660), and sent more spending toward machines needed to make chips with strong demand.

Intel grows server sales while its foundry still depends on business from home

Intel’s first-quarter data center sales rose 22% from a year earlier to $5.1 billion as customers bought more Xeon processors. The company still ended the quarter with a net loss.

The foundry unit reported $5.4 billion in first-quarter sales, but most of that amount came from Intel’s own product divisions. Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner said outside clients brought in less than $200 million, describing it as “legacy business that we have mainly on the wafer side.”

A filing listed external foundry revenue at $174 million, compared with $31 million one year earlier. That works out to growth of about 461%. This seems huge, but a lot of it was simply the result of accounting adjustment with respect to Altera. When Intel stopped controlling Altera, the former unit became a customer from the outside. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Intel has started selling chips to big companies.

This means that, moving forward into the next quarter’s results, Intel has two main things to do. It needs to sell more server chips and do more contract manufacturing. Factory expansion alone will not settle that question unless enough new orders arrive.

Intel executives say the growing use of AI inference is helping demand for processors, wafers, and advanced packaging. Lip-Bu said the change is “significantly increasing the need for Intel’s CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings.”

For the second quarter, Intel expects revenue of $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion. It also projects adjusted earnings of $0.20 per share.

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