I keep coming back to one number. Eight point nine billion dollars. That's what the federal government paid for a chunk of Intel last August. Nine months later, that stake is worth thirty-six billion.
I can't stop thinking about this. A twenty-six and a half billion dollar paper gain. In nine months. Earned by the U.S. Treasury. Sitting on shares it bought at a seventeen percent discount to the market price.
You and I could not get that price. Your 401(k) could not get that price. The government got it because the government can.
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Here's what worries me. This week, Washington did it again. This time with nine quantum computing companies. IBM got a billion dollars. GlobalFoundries got three hundred seventy-five million. D-Wave, Rigetti, Quantinuum, Infleqtion, Atom Computing, PsiQuantum, and Diraq all got checks too.
These aren't grants. The government is buying shares. At a discount. And if your retirement money sits in a broad index fund, you probably already own some of these names. You paid retail. Uncle Sam paid wholesale.
I get it. Some of this sounds like good business. The Treasury made a killing on Intel. Taxpayers, in theory, share in the win. That's the pitch.
But I don't think most people realize what's been built here. The federal government is now the largest single shareholder in Intel. Four hundred thirty-three million shares. It owns a piece of MP Materials. Trilogy Metals. Lithium Americas. It holds a "golden share" in U.S. Steel. And now nine quantum firms.
That's more than ten billion dollars committed. To private companies. Picked by people in Washington. With your money.
Nobody is talking about the part that keeps me up. There is no exit plan. None. Not one official has said how or when the government sells. And it will sell. It always does.
When that day comes, four hundred million Intel shares hit the market. Or some big slice of them. The price drops. Every regular shareholder eats the loss. The Treasury walks away with a profit. You don't.
This is the part the headlines miss. The headlines say "quantum stocks soar on two billion in funding." True. But the stocks soared because a new buyer showed up with a checkbook the rest of us can't match. And that buyer will leave one day. With a smile.
I keep thinking about a friend of mine. He's sixty-one. Owns a small fabrication shop in Ohio. He doesn't read financial news. He has a 401(k) that his advisor set up years ago. It holds an S&P 500 fund. That fund holds Intel. It holds IBM. It will hold more of these names as the indexes update.
He has no idea his government is sitting next to him on the cap table. At a better price. With better terms. And no obligation to tell him when it's leaving.
I'm not saying any of this is illegal. It isn't. I'm not saying the people doing it are bad. Many of them think they're saving American industry. Maybe they are.
But the rules quietly changed. The federal government became the most aggressive venture capitalist in America. It picks winners. It takes the best price in the room. It sits on quiet paper gains while regular savers carry the risk.
Eight point nine billion turned into thirty-six billion. In nine months. That's the number I'd repeat to a friend over coffee. That's the number that tells you who the market really works for now.
Nobody knows when Washington cashes out. Nobody knows what gets sold first. Nobody knows if Congress will demand the money for something else. A war. A bailout. A budget fight. Any of it could trigger the sale.
What I do know is this. When that wave comes, the people who paid retail will feel it. The people who paid wholesale will not.
I'll keep digging into this. The quantum deals were signed Thursday. The details are still trickling out. I want to know who negotiated the discounts. I want to know what strings came attached. I want to know if there are clauses that let the government sell quietly. There usually are.
More on this tomorrow.
— Lauren
Editor, American Ledger
