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Exclusive / Intel, Apple were in talks for months about chip deal claimed by Trump
Business Reporter
Jun 18, 2026, 9:54am EDT
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The Scoop
President Donald Trump’s late-night Truth Social post announcing a US chipmaking deal between Apple and Intel sent shares of the chipmaker surging 9% in Thursday trading. Among those surprised were Intel’s own executives, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Intel and Apple have been in talks about a deal to manufacture some chips in the US for months now, that person said. The status of those talks could not be learned. An Intel spokesperson declined to provide a comment on Trump’s announcement. An Apple spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US government last year took a large Intel stake, which was worth about $9 billion at the time. The stake is now worth about $67 billion based on today’s market value. “When I walked in the door, they were a dumpster fire,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Semafor in April. Now, “the fire’s out.”
Know More
Intel has been on an aggressive push to build out its manufacturing partnerships through its foundry business. CEO Lip-Bu Tan told CNBC that the company is starting to see the progress it wants on improving its chip-manufacturing processes, and that customers are taking notice. Semafor reported last year that Intel and AMD had held preliminary talks about a foundry deal, although no agreement between those two companies has yet materialized.
A deal with Apple would provide a boost to Intel’s long-struggling foundry business, which has spent years and billions of dollars trying to challenge rival TSMC.
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