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Donald Trump has made the federal government Intel’s largest shareholder by approving a 10% stake in the ailing American chipmaker. It’s a move that upends GOP economic orthodoxy and has conservatives who typically support the former president lining up to lambaste him.

But Trump himself does not seem to see a contradiction. He insists the investment is a good deal for the United States, one that will make the country “richer and richer.” And he has indicated he is just getting started. “I hope I’m going to have many more cases like it,” he said at a White House event to announce the deal.

The investment marks a dramatic departure for Trump. After eight years of mocking the Obama administration for its response to the 2008–09 financial crisis, the former president is moving the country in the direction of what was once called industrial policy. That is the idea that the federal government should help pick the winners in the economy and support those companies so that they grow in scale and technological sophistication.

In doing so, he is raising a question that comes up with every new instance of such government intervention in the market: Is it socialism? For most of the last century, socialism was defined in part as government ownership of the means of production for the benefit of society. By that definition, Trump’s action was no different from what goes on in China, Russia, or many other nations.

The politics are the funniest part. In 2008–09, Barack Obama took control of Chrysler and General Motors, moves that were characterized by the right as if the communists were taking over the United States. But conservatives at the time saw it as necessary and justified because Obama was acting in a time of national crisis to save America’s industrial icons.

Conservative Media Would Have Called Obama a Communist

Yet if Obama had taken a 10% stake in Intel, many Trump allies say, conservative media would have called him a communist. Trump insists it’s different. “They are not bailing us out,” he said of Intel, which just two years ago was one of the most profitable companies in America. “This is an investment.” He has said he converted nearly $9 billion in grants — money that Biden had already allocated to Intel under his bipartisan Chips Act — into government equity. In so doing, Trump has claimed that he has created $10 billion to $11 billion in immediate value for taxpayers. “Why are ‘stupid’ people unhappy with that?” he tweeted.

Reaction from the conservative establishment has been furious. Trump’s former top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, called the idea “not the kind of capitalism that I believe in. I’m very, very uncomfortable with that idea,” he said on Fox Business. Steve Moore, another informal economic adviser to Trump, was blunter. “I hate corporate welfare. That’s privatization in reverse. We want the government to divest of assets, not buy assets. So terrible, one of the bad ideas that’s come out of this White House,” Moore said on Fox News.

National Review editorialized that “government shouldn’t get into the chip business.” Senator Thom Tillis sounded the alarm. “Risk of a semi-state-owned enterprise a la CCCP,” he said on X, using the acronym for the Soviet Union. Senator Rand Paul amplified Tillis’s point in an X post: “Wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea.”

But progressive Senator Bernie Sanders saw it as a justifiable use of government power to shape industries for the benefit of the public. Trump also has defenders. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick rushed to his defense during an interview with Laura Ingraham. “That is not socialism. That’s the best businessman in the United States of America in the Oval Office doing fair things for us,” he said.

Intel, for its part, warned that the deal could complicate its efforts to win future government grants, threaten its overseas sales, and subject it to more government oversight and regulation. That’s because the company is already struggling; Intel had earlier this year announced it would lay off 15% of its workforce. The company’s market valuation is about $110 billion, down 50% since the beginning of this year. Its stock price did jump 4% after Trump’s announcement.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Trump initially demanded Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan resign because of his past ties to China. Tan’s hold on his job was saved by a face-to-face meeting in the White House, after which Trump said, “I liked him a lot, I thought he was very good.”

The U.S. government has insisted that it will not use its position as Intel’s largest shareholder to influence the company. It will be a non-voting shareholder, meaning it will not get to place any representatives on Intel’s board or have any real influence on the company’s decisions. (Intel did not comment further about the change in ownership, but it did update the SEC on Monday about the risks the investment poses for the company.) But the reality is that when the president of the United States is your largest shareholder, you will take his calls.

It is too soon to say whether Intel will stabilize and grow or continue to flounder. If it does, Trump can point to it as evidence of his strong stewardship of American technology. If it goes badly, taxpayers will have paid the price. But Trump has said he will pursue more such deals. The question of whether this is socialism or capitalism — or both, or neither, or just Trumpism — is only going to get louder.

At a minimum, the Intel stake represents a fundamental reordering of the relationship between the federal government and private enterprise. It’s more evidence of how far Trump has remade the Republican Party’s approach to the economy.