The updated list of Trump ownership stakes in private companies
Teh Trump administration has engaged in notable intervention in private enterprise by acquiring ownership interests in numerous private companies, claiming these moves are necessary for national security and competitiveness in areas like artificial intelligence. Many deals where facilitated by officials such as Howard Lutnick and funded through acts like the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022,and also other federal agencies.
Key investments include stakes in critical minerals, semiconductor, and quantum computing companies, such as MP Materials, Vulcan Elements, ReElement Technologies, Trilogy Metals, Lithium Americas, and Korea Zinc. These investments aim to bolster domestic production of essential materials like rare earths, lithium, and critical minerals, often involving government ownership stakes, warrants, and long-term purchase agreements.
The administration also took measures to influence the private sector through strategic partnerships, such as a 40% stake in a joint venture with Korea Zinc to develop critical mineral processing in Tennessee and a $150 million equity stake in Atlantic Alumina to produce gallium crucial for military and satellite applications. Additionally, the U.S.government invested heavily in the nuclear sector, including a deal with Westinghouse to build reactors worth around $80 billion, with provisions for profit participation and potential IPOs.
In the technology sector, the administration mandated revenue sharing from sales of certain chips to China, and made a historic stake in Intel by converting grants into equity. Significant funding was allocated via the CHIPS Act to advance semiconductor manufacturing, AI hardware, and quantum computing research, involving companies such as IBM, GlobalFoundries, Atom Computing, and Rigetti, among others.
Other investments focused on developing next-generation technologies like advanced semiconductors,photonics,and electronic components crucial for AI and national security. The government also partnered with firms to fund nuclear reactor projects, including a major deal with Westinghouse. Trade agreements with countries like Japan, South Korea, the EU, and others included provisions for large-scale investments directed by the U.S. government into domestic infrastructure, energy, and high-tech industries, resembling sovereign wealth fund strategies.
these actions reflect an aggressive strategy to reshape U.S. capabilities in critical industries and secure supply chains through direct investments, ownership stakes, and strategic partnerships, frequently enough with an emphasis on advancing national security and economic resilience.
The Trump administration has taken ownership interests in dozens of private companies, representing a level of intervention in private enterprise that is well beyond what has been contemplated by recent presidents.
The administration has justified its ventures into business ownership as necessary for national security and to compete in critical domains, such as artificial intelligence.
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Many of the deals in question have been brokered by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick using funds from the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which was meant to boost domestic production of semiconductors. Others have been executed with funding from the Department of War or other agencies.
There are five main categories of investments:
- Critical minerals: The administration has invested in a number of companies to boost domestic production of critical minerals and end China’s stranglehold on the supply chain.
- Semiconductor and chip companies: The administration has intervened in the private sector to increase the domestic supply of inputs necessary to win the AI race.
- Quantum computing.
- Nuclear power.
- Rockets.
Read on for the updated list of interventions by the Trump administration.
Minerals and steel
MP Materials
In July of last year, the Department of War became the largest shareholder of rare earth mining company MP Materials, agreeing to buy $400 million in preferred stock. The deal also includes a 10-year agreement to buy neodymium-praseodymium metal and oxide products, which are necessary to produce permanent magnets, at a price floor.
The unusual deal has been justified as necessary to compete with China in producing rare earth minerals with important clean energy and defense applications.
Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies
In another rare earths-related deal, the Trump administration in November provided financing to Vulcan Elements, a startup manufacturer of rare earth magnets, and ReElement Technologies, a company that recycles and processes rare earth materials.
The deal includes a $620 million direct loan from the War Department’s Office of Strategic Capital and $50 million of federal incentives from the Commerce Department under the CHIPS Act.
The government has an ownership stake in the companies through the deal. The War Department received warrants in both Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies. The Commerce Department got $50 million of equity in Vulcan Elements.
Trilogy Metals
In October, the Trump administration announced that it was taking a stake in the Canadian mining company Trilogy Metals as part of a deal for the company to explore in the Ambler Mining District in Canada, for which the administration also approved an access road long opposed by environmentalists.
Through the War Department’s Office of Strategic Capital, the Trump administration effectively spent $35.6 million to become a 10% shareholder in Trilogy Metals and to acquire warrants to purchase an additional 7.5% of the company after the completion of the road.
Lithium Americas
The Energy Department announced in October that it had taken an equity stake in the Canadian mining company Lithium Americas as part of a restructuring of a multibillion-dollar loan given to the company to develop the Thacker Pass mine project in Nevada, the only domestic source of lithium carbonate.
The deal gives the DOE a 5% equity stake in Lithium Americas via warrants and an additional 5% ownership in warrants in a joint venture with the miner and General Motors.
Korea Zinc
The Pentagon reportedly took a 40% stake in a joint venture with the Korean mining firm Korea Zinc in December to build an advanced smelter and critical minerals processing facility in Tennessee.
In addition to the $1.4 billion invested by the Department of War, financing for the project includes $200 million in CHIPS Act funding from the Department of Commerce.
Atlantic Alumina
The Department of War took a $150 million equity stake in Atlantic Alumina, also known as ATALCO, in January to boost the domestic production of alumina and establish a gallium production facility in Gramercy, Louisiana. Gallium is a critical mineral used in military equipment and satellites.
US steel
The Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel entered into a merger agreement in June of last year, subject to a national security agreement with the government that gives the administration a “golden share” in the business and gives it the final say over many business decisions. The golden share allows the government to block certain capital expenditure decisions, any renaming of the company, a change in headquarters, the shutdown of factories, and more.
The administration used the authority in September to block the closure of a plant in Illinois.
Chips and semiconductors
Nvidia and AMD
The Trump administration reached an unusual deal last August with Nvidia and AMD to require the two companies to pay the government 15% of revenue from sales of certain chips to China.
The administration has banned the sale of cutting-edge chips used for artificial intelligence to China for national security reasons. However, it lifted the export controls for the sale of less powerful chips, subject to the government taking the 15% cut.
Intel
The Trump administration last August took a stake of 9.9% in Intel, making it the chipmaker’s largest shareholder.
The deal involved converting government grants under the CHIPS Act into equity.
XLight
In December, the Department of Commerce used CHIPS Act funding to take a $150 million equity stake in xLight to build a specialized laser for use in semiconductor manufacturing in Albany, New York.
SandboxAQ
The Commerce Department announced in June that it had awarded SandboxAQ a $500 million through the CHIPS Act in exchange for an unspecified minority ownership stake.
The agency said the award would accelerate SandboxAQ’s efforts to discover materials that would help with semiconductor “materials bottlenecks and supply chain risks, including developing new molecules and chemistries for alternatives to PFAS ‘forever chemicals,’ advanced catalysts, rare earth-free magnets, and novel battery chemistries for semiconductor facility backup power systems.”
I-Pulse
In June, the Commerce Department announced that it had given $250 million in CHIPS Act funding to I-Pulse to develop silicon carbide power semiconductors “that can operate in extremely harsh operating environments,” in coordination with federal labs. It received a minority stake in the company.
Kepler Computing
In exchange for a minority stake, the Commerce Department in July gave Kepler Computing $245 million in CHIPS Act funding for “R&D to develop in the U.S. a new class of high-performance AI memory technology enabled by innovative 3D and ferroelectric technologies.”
Multibeam Corporation
In exchange for a minority stake, the Commerce Department in July gave Multibeam Corporation $140 million “to develop advanced packaging technology to assemble and stack multiple chips and connect them with thousands of wires, which will enable more advanced systems necessary for AI and other advanced computing applications.”
Extropic
In exchange for a minority stake, the Commerce Department in July gave $75 million to Extropic to “develop thermodynamic sampling units (TSUs) which use natural thermal fluctuations to probabilistically solve complex problems spanning simulation, optimization, and AI, at a fraction of the energy consumed by conventional computing approaches.”
Thintronics
In exchange for a minority stake, the Commerce Department in July gave Thintronics up to $50 million “to develop ultra-low-loss inter-layer dielectrics required for next-generation semiconductor interconnects and advanced packaging in high-performance compute, AI, and networking infrastructure.”
OBSIDIA Semiconductors
In exchange for a minority stake, the Commerce Department in July gave OBSIDIA Semiconductors $34 million “for R&D to deliver non-invasive counterfeit and malicious component identification systems to ensure provenance and traceability in secure supply chains for AI and advanced electronics.”
Aeluma
In exchange for a minority stake, the Commerce Department in July gave Aeluma “up to $30 million to develop large diameter, indium-phosphide-free substrate technology used to fabricate photodetectors and lasers for AI photonic interconnects.”
GlobalFoundries
The Commerce Department in July gave GlobalFoundries up to $300 million “to accelerate the domestic research and development of co-packaged optics by two to three years. By integrating photonics directly alongside AI processors, this technology will deliver ultra-fast, energy-efficient computing to reinforce U.S. leadership in AI infrastructure.” The stake is worth less than 1% of the company, according to GlobalFoundries. The agency also cut a deal with GlobalFoundries for funding for a quantum computing project (see below).
Quantum computing
In May, the Department of Commerce announced it would grant $2 billion in CHIPS Act funding to nine companies for projects related to quantum computing. In exchange, it will get a minority stake in each company.
IBM
The Commerce Department used $1 billion in CHIPS Act funding to invest with IBM in a new venture, called Anderon, in Albany, intended to build a 300-millimeter quantum wafer foundry.
GlobalFoundries
Commerce will give $375 million to GlobalFoundries to “establish a secure, domestic quantum foundry for leading architectures and multiple modalities (superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, topological, and silicon spin) used in large-scale quantum computers.” Commerce also reached a deal with GlobalFoundries to provide funding for work on silicon photonics, as mentioned above.
Atom Computing
Atom Computing was awarded $100 million to tackle “key technical and manufacturing challenges for neutral-atom quantum computing, including hardware development and systems integration needed to manipulate, control, and address tens of thousands of qubits, and validate their performance.”
Diraq
Diraq got $38 million to “develop and scale quantum logic units and accelerate critical manufacturing and integration capabilities for silicon spin quantum computing technologies, including novel designs for large-scale and reliable qubit arrays.”
D-Wave Quantum
D-Wave Quantum will receive $100 million “for critical advancements in annealing and gate-model superconducting quantum computing systems, including qubit counts, error rates, and coherence through advanced dielectric material optimization, interface control, and high-density advanced packaging.”
Infleqtion
Infleqtion will receive $100 million “to develop the underlying engineering systems and integration requirements for large-scale neutral-atom-based quantum computers and architectures, including high-powered optical systems, novel readout and error correction systems.”
PsiQuantum
PsiQuantum will receive $100 million “to address key photonic quantum computing technical challenges for matured and high-performance electro-optic materials, high-temperature single-photon detectors, and ultra-low-loss photonic packaging.”
Quantinuum
Quantinuum will receive $100 million “to address critical technology and manufacturing bottlenecks for scaling of fault-tolerant trapped-ion-based quantum computers, such as low-loss integrated photonics, and reliable optical components at trapped-ion critical wavelengths.”
Rigetti computing
Rigetti will receive up to $100 million “to address key technical challenges to develop and scale next generation superconducting quantum computing technologies and architectures, such as miniaturizing and integrating novel readout electronics and next generation cryostat architectures.”
Nuclear
Westinghouse
The Trump administration announced a deal in late October with the nuclear giant Westinghouse to build $80 billion of reactors. The deal also involves Canadian uranium firm Cameco Corporation and Brookfield Asset Management.
White House officials said some of the funding from the deal would come from Japan or Japanese companies as part of a trade deal.
The deal commits the Commerce Department to arrange financing and facilitate permitting and approvals for new Westinghouse nuclear reactors with an aggregate investment value of at least $80 billion.
In return, the government gets a “participation interest,” a form of ownership stake, that will give it 20% profits beyond $17.5 billion. The government can also demand that Westinghouse conduct an initial public offering if its value is expected to be $30 billion, at which point the participation interest would convert to warrants to buy 20% of the company, after deducting $17.5 billion from the value, or about an 8% stake. Last week, Westinghouse announced plans to conduct an IPO.
Rockets
L3Harris
In April, the Department of War invested $1 billion in L3Harris’s Missile Solutions business for expansion and modernization efforts at solid rocket motor production facilities in Camden, Arkansas; Huntsville, Alabama; and Orange, Virginia.
The Pentagon stake includes a security that will convert to common stock when L3Harris IPOs, as well as warrants to buy common stock in Missile Solutions.
More to come through trade deals
Several of the trade deals that Trump has touted would give the administration the ability to direct investment into the U.S. by the counterparty in the trade deal.
The Japan trade deal, struck in June, includes $550 billion in investments by the Japanese government and Japanese companies to be made in the United States at Trump’s direction. The funds are supposed to be used for energy infrastructure and production, semiconductor manufacturing, critical minerals production, and more.
Part of the funding for the Westinghouse deal came from the agreement.
It is also expected to be used to fund other energy projects, AI infrastructure, specific mines, and more.
Similar provisions were included in deals reached with the European Union and South Korea.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent likened the trade deal provisions to a form of state-directed investment, akin to the sovereign wealth funds maintained by some governments.
“Other countries, in essence, are providing us with a sovereign wealth fund,” he said in a television interview.
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