The U.S. government has an unrealized gain of about $26.5 billion on its Intel ( INTC ) stake after the chipmaker’s shares surged more than 22% in pre-market trading Friday following a stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings report.
The position stems from an August deal in which the Trump administration converted $8.9 billion in CHIPS Act grants and Secure Enclave funding into 433.3 million Intel shares at $20.47 apiece, giving it a roughly 9.9% stake. With Intel trading near $81.80 in pre-market trading Friday, the stock is now valued at approximately $35.4 billion, nearly tripling in less than a year.
The government also has warrants to buy an additional 5% of the stock at $20 per share, options that are now deep in the money.
Intel’s rally was driven by sharp earnings. The company reported first-quarter revenue of $13.6 billion, up 7% year over year and above Wall Street expectations of $12.4 billion. Non-GAAP earnings per stock came in at $0.29, far exceeding the consensus estimate of a loss of $0.01.
Growth was led by Intel’s data center and AI segment, which rose 22% to $5.1 billion as demand for Xeon processors accelerates along with the broader AI infrastructure.
CEO Lip-Bu Tan pointed to a shift in AI computing toward inference and agentic workloads, saying the trend “significantly increases demand for Intel’s CPUs.”
Intel guided for revenue in the range of $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion for the second quarter.
