WSJ: Trump’s pressure led to billions of deals – the secret of Intel’s rise revealed

Donald Trump’s the administration pressed Apple to use Intel’s chips in their devices at the time of the customs pressure in the summer of 2025, they say Wall Street Journal sources.

The President himself and the Minister of Trade Howard Lutnick the CEO of Apple brought up working with Intel in the negotiations Tim Cookin with hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in production to be placed in the United States.

About a year after the negotiations, Trump announced at Truth Social that Apple will start using chips made by Intel in some of its products. According to the WSJ’s source, Apple plans to use Intel to make chips for both Macbooks and iPhones.

“I decided to help Intel because we need to design and build our chips here in America,” Trump wrote.

Trump did not mention that the US federal government is Intel’s largest owner. In August 2025, 10 percent of the company was transferred to the ownership of the administration for approximately 9 billion dollars.

Apple isn’t the only one

Apple is not the only company that has made agreements with Intel after the Trump administration became the company’s largest owner. For example, the world’s largest company has also participated Nvidia in a contract worth about five billion dollars and Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX. Intel is involved in Musk’s ambitious Terafab project.

Experts consider the Trump administration’s active participation in Intel’s operations to be working for the time being, but warn of unpleasant conversations if the business turns downhill at some point.

“The position as a puppet of the administration only works if the company is doing well. CEO Lip-Bu Tanin the danger is that if things go downhill, politicians will act on very short schedules”, of the Cato Institute lawyer Scott Lincicome sanoi WSJ:lle.