# Government Equity Stakes Roster The deal-by-deal ledger of the second Trump administration taking **ownership positions in private companies** — the practice this vault files under [[American State Capitalism]]. For the conceptual frame (what changed, why it's different from a bailout, and the cronyism risk), read that page first. This roster is the receipts. > [!warning] The core fact about this ledger: nobody has a complete one > These positions **appear in no budget document and are subject to no dedicated watchdog**. There is no federal registry of the government's equity holdings. Every public tally — including this one — is assembled from press releases, SEC filings, and agency announcements. CFR's Jonathan Hillman, who runs the most-cited tracker, describes the work as "a little bit like investigative work." Treat every number below as a floor, not a count. --- ## The totals (contested — do not flatten) Three credible trackers disagree, because they draw the boundary between "equity," "quasi-equity," and "revenue share" in different places. | Source | As of | Dollars | Deals / companies | |--------|-------|---------|-------------------| | CFR U.S. Government Deal Tracker | 2026-07-30 | $27.6B | 37 deals | | Fortune / Yahoo Finance tally | 2026-07-26 | $26.7B | 30 equity or quasi-equity deals | | CSIS (narrow — true equity only) | 2026-02-12 | ~$10B committed | small set; "most of that sum" is Intel | The gap between CSIS's ~$10B and CFR's $27.6B is not a factual dispute. CSIS counts only stakes; CFR counts stakes **plus** quasi-equity — warrants, profit participations, golden shares, and revenue-sharing arrangements that behave like ownership without being ownership. **Agencies, per CFR (July 2026):** [[Department of Commerce]] 24 deals · [[Department of Defense]] 7 · [[Development Finance Corporation]] 6 · [[Department of Energy]] 2. *(These sum to 39 against a 37-deal total — some deals are jointly booked. Flagged, not reconciled.)* --- ## Tier 1 — the anchor deals | Deal | Agency | Instrument | Stake | Announced | |------|--------|-----------|-------|-----------| | [[Intel Government Equity Stake]] | Commerce | Common stock purchase | 9.9% at purchase, **~9.4–9.5% after Aug 2026 dilution** | 2025-08-22 | | [[MP Materials DoD Rare Earth Partnership]] | Defense | Preferred stock + warrants | ~15% if converted | 2025-07 | | [[US Steel Nippon Golden Share]] | CFIUS / Treasury | Golden share | 0% economic, perpetual veto | 2025-06 | | [[USA Rare Earth Government Equity Stake]] | Commerce | Equity + warrants + $1.3B senior debt | 10%, more if warrants exercised | 2026-01-24 | | [[CHIPS Act Chipmaker Equity Round 2026]] | Commerce | Minority stakes via LOI | undisclosed, non-controlling | 2026-07-29 | | [[Venezuela Oil Government Equity Stake]] | Defense — [[Office of Strategic Capital]] | Penny warrants + 20%-of-output offtake at cost | 35%, passive | 2026-08-28 | > [!warning] The Venezuela entry breaks the pattern of this table in three ways > It is the first position taken in a **foreign** company, over assets belonging to another state; the first taken by the **Pentagon** rather than Commerce or Energy; and the first whose counterparty is under **active foreign criminal investigation** — with the U.S. government reported to have intervened in that investigation the day before the deal was announced. Trump described it as "majority U.S. control"; the reported stake is 35% and passive. See the deal page. ### Intel — the one that made it a policy [[Intel Corporation]] is the headline and the template. Commerce converted **$5.7B in unpaid [[CHIPS and Science Act]] grants plus $3.2B in Secure Enclave awards** into 433.3 million shares at $20.47 — roughly $8.9B for a 9.9% position. Structured as **passive**: no board seat, and the government agreed to vote with Intel's board on most matters. By mid-2026 the position was reported as worth roughly $42B on paper, which is the single strongest argument the administration has for the whole program. The catch, documented in Intel's own SEC filings: rather than clawing back CHIPS money for Intel's delayed Ohio fabs, Commerce **accelerated** the payments and agreed that Intel's grant obligations would "be considered discharged" to the maximum extent permissible. The government traded away the fabs the statute was written to buy, and took stock instead. **Update (August 2026) — the stake is shrinking passively.** Intel raised **$20B** in new common stock on 2026-08-10 (upsized from an announced $15B), 210.5M shares at **$95**. The government did not participate, so its fixed 433.3M shares now represent **~9.4–9.5%** rather than 9.9%. A passive minority holder with no pro-rata participation right loses ownership every time the company issues equity — and this one will keep issuing. See [[Intel Government Equity Stake]]. ### MP Materials — the Pentagon as largest shareholder The Defense Department put **$400M into preferred stock and warrants** in [[MP Materials]] — up to ~15% if converted and exercised, making DoD the company's largest shareholder. The package also included a **price floor** on certain rare earths and a magnet offtake commitment, which is the part that actually changes MP's economics. Executed under **Title III of the [[Defense Production Act]]**. See also the adjacent (and far dirtier) [[Vulcan Elements OSC $620M Pentagon Loan]]. ### U.S. Steel — ownership without shares The [[US Steel Nippon Golden Share]] is the outlier: the government took **no economic stake at all**. It took a perpetual governance veto — over redomiciling, cutting planned investment, and relocating jobs — as the price of approving [[Nippon Steel]]'s acquisition through [[CFIUS]]. This is the deal that proves the tool is not really about money. See [[Golden Share]]. **Has the golden share become a standard CFIUS term? No — and it cuts against the administration's own stated policy.** Practitioner analysis a year on still describes the structure as **unique in CFIUS practice to date**, not as a template that has been replicated in subsequent national security agreements. More striking, it runs directly against the **National Security Presidential Memorandum on America First Investment Policy (February 2025)**, which called for an **end to open-ended national security agreements** in favor of concrete actions completable within defined time frames. The golden share is perpetual and open-ended by construction. The administration wrote down a policy against exactly this instrument and then deployed it in its highest-profile CFIUS case — an inconsistency worth holding onto, because it suggests the tool is being used opportunistically rather than doctrinally. --- ## Tier 2 — critical minerals and energy | Company | Agency | Stake | Notes | |---------|--------|-------|-------| | [[USA Rare Earth]] | Commerce | 10%, plus warrants on 17.6M more shares | Jan 2026; **only ~$277M of the $1.6B package is equity** — $1.3B is senior secured debt | | [[Lithium Americas]] | Energy | ~5% via warrants, plus ~5% of the GM joint venture | Thacker Pass; sometimes reported as a combined 10% | | [[Trilogy Metals]] | multiple | ~10% | Alaska; tied to the Ambler Road access decision | | [[Westinghouse Electric Company]] | Energy / White House | quasi-equity — terms not fully public | Part of the $80B reactor build-out with Brookfield and Cameco (Oct 2025) | > [!tip] Read the package, not the headline > The USA Rare Earth deal is the cleanest example of a number that inflates in transit. "$1.6 billion for a 10% stake" pairs the **total package** with the **equity percentage**; the actual equity purchase is roughly **$277M** (16.1M shares at $17.17) and the rest is a **loan at market rates**. Debt is not ownership. Whenever a stake is announced as a single large dollar figure, check whether that figure is buying shares or lending money — the trackers that count "quasi-equity" do not always separate them either. > [!caution] Westinghouse needs a second pass > Public reporting is clear on the $80B construction commitment and on the administration's role in financing, land, and permitting. The **specific form and size of the government's economic participation is not well documented**. It is counted in CFR's tracker; it is not described in CSIS's narrow equity list. Do not assert a percentage on this page until a primary document supports one. --- ## Tier 3 — the semiconductor round (July 2026) On **2026-07-29** Commerce announced up to **$874M** in CHIPS money in exchange for "minority, non-controlling equity stakes," largely for R&D in advanced integrated photonics and adjacent AI-stack gaps. Recipients: **[[GlobalFoundries]] ($300M), Kepler ($245M), Multibeam Corporation ($140M), Extropic ($75M), Thintronics ($50M), OBSIDIA Semiconductors ($34M), and Aeluma ($30M)**. > [!success] Count discrepancy RESOLVED (2026-08-26): it is seven, and the seventh is GlobalFoundries > This page previously carried the six-versus-seven split as unresolved. The Commerce/NIST press release names **seven** companies, and the arithmetic confirms it independently: the six consistently-reported names sum to **$574M** against an announced **$874M**, and the $300M gap is exactly GlobalFoundries' award. > > The likely source of the undercount is a framing difference — GlobalFoundries is an established public chipmaker already in the CHIPS program, so outlets counting *new additions to the government's stock portfolio* appear to have excluded it. Correct for a portfolio count, wrong for a deal count. **Any tally reporting six companies and $874M is internally inconsistent.** These are still **letters of intent**, not closed deals — the figures are maximums and Commerce states there will be "further diligence and approval" before final awards. **No closings announced as of 2026-08-26.** See [[CHIPS Act Chipmaker Equity Round 2026]]. --- ## Not equity, but on the same ledger: the Nvidia/AMD revenue share The government took **no stake** in [[NVIDIA]] or [[AMD]]. Instead it takes a **cut of their chip sales to China** — reported at 15% — in exchange for export licenses permitting those sales. This belongs on the roster because it is the same move wearing different clothes: the state converting a **regulatory approval** into a **financial claim on a private company's revenue**. It is arguably the more consequential precedent, because unlike an equity purchase it requires no appropriation at all. The same logic runs through the U.S. Steel golden share — approval as currency. --- ## The legal basis (and its thinness) No statute expressly authorizes any of this. Per Peter Harrell's Lawfare analysis, the administration is reading broad language in four places: | Authority | Citation | What it actually says | |-----------|----------|----------------------| | CHIPS Act + "other transaction authority" | 15 U.S.C. § 4652; 15 U.S.C. § 272(b)(4) | Authorizes "financial assistance" and contracts "on such terms as it may determine appropriate" — neither authorizes nor forbids equity | | Defense Production Act, Title III | 50 U.S.C. § 4533 | Purchases and production-capacity development **"without regard to the limitations of existing law"** — the widest door in the building | | CFIUS mitigation | 50 U.S.C. § 4565 | May "impose, and enforce any agreement or condition" to mitigate national-security risk — the golden-share hook | | BUILD Act (DFC) | 22 U.S.C. § 9621 | The **one clear grant of authority**: explicitly permits minority equity investment | The notable history: during the 2022 CHIPS debate, **Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren offered an amendment requiring** Commerce to take warrants or equity in grant recipients. The Senate did not adopt it. The administration is now doing by interpretation what Congress declined to authorize by vote. **The constraint that might bite:** the **Government Corporation Control Act of 1945** (31 U.S.C. § 9102) bars an agency from acquiring "a corporation to act as an agency" absent specific statutory authorization. Minority, passive, non-controlling structures are designed to stay clear of it. A **major questions doctrine** challenge is also available in theory. **Why none of it has been tested:** *who sues?* Every company involved consented — several plausibly under duress, but formally consented — and a firm that just sold the government a tenth of itself is not going to sue over it. The plaintiffs who would have standing (a rejected applicant, a diluted shareholder, an undercut competitor) have not surfaced. **Congress, not the courts, is the only live check** — and Congress has not acted. --- ## Oversight and politics - **Democratic investigation (2026):** Senate Energy and Natural Resources ranking member [[Martin Heinrich]] and House Natural Resources ranking member [[Jared Huffman]] are demanding documents and briefings from the secretaries of Energy, Defense, Commerce, and Interior over the mineral deals — more than half a dozen mining and minerals companies. - **Public opinion:** a CNBC poll (2026-07-20) found voters broadly **wary** of government ownership stakes in companies. - **The odd coalition:** [[Bernie Sanders]] publicly backed the Intel stake. The idea has genuine left support — the taxpayer-should-share-the-upside argument — which is precisely why it is not a simple partisan story. --- ## Historical precedent — and what breaks the pattern The United States has taken corporate stakes before. What it has not done is take them like this. | Episode | Era | Shape | |---------|-----|-------| | First and Second Banks of the United States | 1791–1836 | Federal minority stake in a chartered bank; charter allowed to lapse | | Panama Railroad Company | 1903 | Outright purchase, canal-building instrumentality | | Reconstruction Finance Corporation | 1930s | Stakes in roughly **half the nation's banks**; wound down, final report 1957 | | Chrysler bailout warrants | 1980 | Warrants as loan security; **sold at a profit in 1983** | | Continental Illinois | 1984 | FDIC majority stake in a failing bank | | [[Troubled Asset Relief Program]] | 2008–09 | Banks, insurers, GM; **statutory sunset**; stakes sold off | | CARES Act airline warrants | 2020–21 | Warrants for pandemic support; subsequently sold | **The pattern in every prior case: crisis-driven, temporary, and designed to exit.** TARP had a statutory sunset written into it. The Chrysler warrants were sold. The RFC filed a final report and closed. The current program is **none of those things**. It is proactive rather than reactive, permanent rather than sunsetted, and it has no **program-level** exit plan on the record — no government-wide holding period, disposition rule, or trigger for selling. That is the structural break, and it is the thing to watch: *a temporary stake is a bailout; an open-ended one is an ownership class.* > [!warning] Refinement (2026-08-26): "no disposition rule" is true of the program, not of every deal > An earlier version of this page stated the point too broadly. The **Intel** contract does contain disposition terms: the government's securities **could not be transferred until the first anniversary of closing** — closing was **2025-08-27**, so the lock-up lifted **2026-08-27** — and thereafter may be sold **only through broadly syndicated offerings** (government-sponsored auctions or underwritten public offerings) rather than negotiated private blocks, with **30 days' notice** to Intel required before any sale. > > ⚠️ *Date corrected 2026-09-27: this page previously said closing was 2025-09-26 and the lock-up would lift "around 2026-09-26." Both were a month late, taken from a secondary summary rather than the filing. Intel's Form 424B7 says "on August 27, 2025 (the 'Closing Date')."* > > That channel restriction is quietly the strongest anti-cronyism feature anywhere in this program: it is hard to hand a favored buyer a discounted block through a public underwritten offering. **It exists in one contract and has not been generalized into policy.** Whether the other deals carry comparable terms is undetermined — most have no public documentation on this point at all. > > ⏰ **Near-term checkable item:** whether the government sells any Intel shares after the lock-up lifts in late September 2026, and if so, through what channel and to whom. --- ## Open questions - **No disposition policy at the program level.** Who decides when the government sells, and into whose hands? An unwritten disposition rule is a discretionary gift waiting to be given. The Intel contract is the one known exception (one-year lock-up, syndicated-offering-only channel, 30 days' notice) — and **that lock-up lifted 2026-08-27 with no sale and no stated intent to sell as of 2026-09-27.** The constraint was tested by expiry and produced nothing: the government is free to sell, chose not to, and owes no one an explanation. **Non-sale is now the policy, by default rather than by decision.** - **Dilution as a silent exit.** The Intel stake fell from 9.9% to ~9.4–9.5% in August 2026 purely because Intel issued stock and the government did not participate. No policy question was ever put; the position simply shrank. If the government neither participates in offerings nor sells, its holdings **decay on their own** — which is either an accidental sunset or an unmanaged loss of taxpayer value, depending on who is arguing. Nobody has been asked to choose. **Watch whether Treasury or Commerce ever asserts a participation right.** - **Investor versus regulator.** Commerce holds Intel stock and writes semiconductor export controls. The conflict is structural and unmanaged. - **The selection process is opaque.** Nothing published explains why these firms and not their competitors — which is the exact condition under which cronyism becomes unfalsifiable. Note that the [[Vulcan Elements OSC $620M Pentagon Loan]] already demonstrated a White House thumb on the scale in an adjacent program. - **What happens when one fails?** The Solyndra precedent cuts both ways, and both parties know it. - **Is there a sovereign wealth fund at the end of this?** See [[Sovereign Wealth Fund]] — the administration has floated one, and this portfolio is what it would be built from. --- ## See Also - [[American State Capitalism]] - [[Golden Share]] - [[Critical Minerals]] - [[CHIPS and Science Act]] - [[Defense Production Act]] - [[CFIUS]] - [[Office of Strategic Capital]] - [[Sovereign Wealth Fund]] - [[Deals Hub]]