Welcome, and thanks for reading this issue of Fast Company’s Plugged In.

On August 22, President Donald Trump announced via Truth Social that the U.S. federal government had acquired 10% of Intel. The chipmaker’s news release trumpeted the deal as “historic.” That it was. But it was also ignominious.

In Trump’s own account, he had humbled an iconic American company. Maybe even shaken it down. Fifteen days earlier, he posted to Truth Social that Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan had ties to China, which left him “highly CONFLICTED” and demanded his immediate resignation. On August 11, Tan visited the White House. On August 22, the deal was official.

The U.S.’s ownership stake in Intel doesn’t involve any new funds. Instead, it’s a retroactive quid pro quo for $8.9 billion the company had already been

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