President Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick went on social media to praise Intel and its CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, after the successful launch of the Panther Lake processors. Trump called Tan “the very successful Intel CEO” on his social media platform, saying that the 10% stake the White House took in Intel is already showing a good return for the government. Both the president and Lutnick also mentioned how the company is helping the U.S. regain its lead in cutting-edge chip manufacturing.
“The United States Government is proud to be a Shareholder of Intel, and has already made, through its U.S.A. ownership position, Tens of Billions of Dollars for the American People — IN JUST FOUR MONTHS,” the U.S. president said on Truth Social. “We made a GREAT Deal, and so did Intel. Our Country is determined to bring leading edge Chip Manufacturing back to America, and that is exactly what is happening!!!” The Commerce Secretary also posted on X, “Just four months after the United States invested in Intel, that investment is already delivering tens of billions in value for the American people. That momentum continues with Intel’s new 1.8-nanometer processor, a major step in bringing semiconductor manufacturing back home.”
Spent time today with @LipBuTan1, Intel’s CEO. Just four months after the United States invested in Intel, that investment is already delivering tens of billions in value for the American people. That momentum continues with Intel’s new 1.8-nanometer processor, a major step in… https://t.co/V9U19JtTPwJanuary 9, 2026
Intel has been struggling in the past year, with the company announcing a disastrous quarterly report in July 2024, resulting in a $39 billion drop in market cap overnight. It has resulted in thousands of layoffs, with Pat Gelsinger unexpectedly retiring in December 2024. He was replaced by Lip-Bu Tan in March 2025, who had some controversies relating to his past leadership of Cadence, leading to Trump calling on him to resign from his position.
However, Tan was able to turn things around when he visited the White House and talked to the president, which led to the $8.9-billion investment in the company in August. This was followed by a massive deal in September, in which Nvidia announced it was purchasing $5 billion worth of Intel stock while working alongside it to develop x86 RTX SOCs for PCs. This announcement led to a 25% increase in stock price overnight, with Intel keeping up its momentum with the launch of Intel Core Ultra Series 3 chips at CES 2026, which used its cutting-edge 18A node.
Intel’s latest chips seem to be promising, with initial reports showing increased gaming performance from its integrated GPU that can match discrete RTX 4050 graphics cards. Pre-release testing also showed that it can hit 80 fps in Cyberpunk and 100 fps in F1, but the software still needs a bit more tweaking. Aside from its chip consumer business, the company also needs to break even in its foundry business, which isn’t expected to happen until 2027 with the Intel 14A node. Nevertheless, the success of the Intel 18A node is another step in the right direction for the company. In remarks at CES 2026, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said Intel is “going big time into 14A.”
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