Unrealized gains on the U.S. government’s stake in Intel (INTC) were about $26.5 billion after the chipmaker reported a stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings report, sending the company’s shares up more than 22% in premarket trading on Friday.
The position stems from an August agreement in which the Trump administration converted $8.9 billion in CHIPS Act appropriations and Secure Enclave funds into 433.3 million Intel shares at $20.47 per share, giving it an ownership stake of about 9.9%. Intel shares were trading near $81.80 in premarket trading on Friday. The company is now valued at about $35.4 billion, nearly tripling in less than a year.
The government also holds warrants to buy an additional 5% of the stock at $20 per share, and those options are now good value.
Intel’s share price rise was driven by a sharp increase in earnings. The company reported first-quarter revenue of $13.6 billion, up 7% year-on-year and above Wall Street expectations of $12.4 billion. Non-GAAP earnings per share were $0.29, well ahead of the consensus estimate of a loss of $0.01.
Growth was led by Intel’s Data Center and Artificial Intelligence segment, which grew 22% to $5.1 billion as demand for Xeon processors accelerated alongside the broader AI infrastructure buildout.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan noted the shift in AI computing toward inference and agent workloads, saying this trend “significantly increases demand for Intel CPUs.”
Intel expects second-quarter revenue to be between $13.8 billion and $14.8 billion.
