Top Trump Economic Aide Predicts Federal Government Will Take Stakes in More Private Companies

A top economic advisor to President Trump now says that more deals are likely between the federal government and private industries, resulting in greater public investment in the corporate sector. The director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, argues that it is only fair to taxpayers who are subsidizing certain companies. America recently took a 10 percent stake in the technology giant Intel, which has been receiving billions of dollars in federal grants as part of the CHIPS and Science Act. That law, which was meant to bolster the tech and AI manufacturing sectors, was signed by President Biden in 2022. Mr. Hassett, who also served as a top economic aide to Mr. Trump in his first term, said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday that more deals with private companies are likely to come. “In the past, the federal government has been giving money away lickity split to companies, and the taxpayers receive nothing in return,” Mr. Hassett said. “So now what’s happening with the Intel deal is the Chips Act money is going out as planned, but instead of it just going out and disappearing into the ether, the U.S. taxpayers are getting a little bit of equity.”“I really cannot see how anyone would think that’s a bad thing,” he said. Mr. Hassett claimed that this was motivated by the president’s stated desire to start an American sovereign wealth fund. In February, Mr. Trump signed an executive order that laid out plans to establish such a state-directed fund, which would “promote fiscal sustainability, lessen the burden of taxes on American families and small businesses, establish economic security for future generations, and promote United States economic and strategic leadership internationally.”“The president has made it clear all the way back to the campaign that he thinks that, in the end, it would be great if the U.S. could start to build up a sovereign wealth fund,” Mr. Hassett said Monday. “I’m sure that, at some point, there’ll be more transactions, if not in this industry, in other industries.”He affirmed that America would be a passive partner in any private business affairs. Despite the government’s stake in Intel, it will not direct the firm’s officers on how to run the company. “These are gonna be shares that don’t have voting rights. The government’s gonna stay out of it,” he said. “The general principle that if the U.S. government is able to create a situation that benefits everybody, then it should benefit the taxpayers, too,” he said. Republicans — including Mr. Hassett — who once ridiculed President Obama for “picking winners and losers” have largely been silent about the president’s desire to have the government acquire stakes in private firms. One of the few to speak out is a libertarian-aligned Republican lawmaker of Kentucky, Congressman Thomas Massie. “Our government should not have ownership in private companies. There are so many specific problems with an arrangement like this, but fundamentally, this is not who we are as a country,” he wrote on X in response to the Intel deal. One lawmaker in Congress who backed the president’s plan is a self-described Democratic Socialist of Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders, who derided the Chips Act in 2022. At the time, he said that the law was a “corporate welfare scheme.” “If microchip companies make a profit from the generous grants they receive from the federal government, the taxpayers of America have a right to a reasonable return on that investment,” Mr. Sanders told Reuters in response to Mr. Trump’s Intel deal.

Top Trump Economic Aide Predicts Federal Government Will Take Stakes in More Private Companies

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