For every action, something can go sideways
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Trump's recent deal with Intel gives the U.S. government a 10% ownership stake in the company. But today, Intel responded with a regulatory filing, outlining all of the ways this deal could go sideways. We take a look at the unintended consequences of governments owning companies. Also on the show: why prices have been slow to rise in response to tariffs and what to expect from the fall retail season.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Here is today's macroeconomic reminder for every action, well, something can go sideways. |
| 0:10.0 | From American public media, this is Marketplace. |
| 0:15.0 | In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It is Monday, today the 25th of August. Good as always to have you along, everybody. |
| 0:31.6 | We delve only rarely on this program into corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for reasons |
| 0:38.3 | that one hopes are readily apparent. Sintillating reading, they are not. But every now and then, |
| 0:44.7 | one does find a diamond in the fine print, and that is where we find ourselves today. The filing in |
| 0:50.7 | question is SEC Form 8K, filed by Intel on Friday afternoon. |
| 0:56.0 | Right around the time President Trump was trumpeting the government taking an $8.5-ish billion stake in the troubled chipmaker, the grants authorized during the Biden administration. |
| 1:06.0 | You might remember that in return for about 10% of the company. |
| 1:09.7 | Let me just read you the relevant package here, highlighted in bold in the original document, by the way. |
| 1:15.1 | The U.S. government's ownership of significant equity interests in the company may subject the company and its stockholders to a number of additional risks and uncertainties, any of which could have a material adverse effect on the |
| 1:28.9 | company's business. Now, corporate lawyers are notoriously cautious. Risk disclosures are boilerplate |
| 1:37.1 | to an extent. But what we have here is the law of unintended consequences made real? Marketplace's Nova Saffo starts |
| 1:47.2 | with what can happen when governments own companies. In some ways, taking an ownership stake in |
| 1:53.8 | Intel makes sense, says Todd Tucker at the Roosevelt Institute. If the public's going to be putting up |
| 1:59.0 | the money, the public deserves more of the upside to that investment if and when it pans out. |
| 2:05.3 | Of course, it might not pan out. |
| 2:07.5 | Michael Strain with the American Enterprise Institute worries about how the deal might affect Intel's future. |
| 2:13.5 | Intel will be making decisions in part based on what's going to make the White House and the president happy or unhappy. |
| 2:23.1 | For example, by potentially avoiding layoffs it might otherwise make to improve its profitability. |
| 2:28.7 | This is going to shape the decisions of Intel's customers as well. |
| 2:33.0 | Do they renew contracts at favorable rates or unfavorable rates for fear of attracting unwanted |
... |
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