This reticence to give out CHIPS Act funding right away apparently stemmed from fears from the government that Intel specifically would not meet its promises. “[There is fear that] Intel is going to take chips money, build an empty shell of a factory and then never actually open it, because they don’t have customers,” said former Commerce Department official Caitlin Legacki.
Honestly this seems like rare reasonable move by the federal government.
I mean, ‘take the money, build an empty factory’ is what tech companies do when you give them a money helicopter.
Maybe we should stop giving them any money and just nationalize these failed businesses that need bailouts? (Yes, yes, Intel isn’t failed - yet - but my point is still valid.)
If they’re important to the national security or whatever, then they’re important enough to go through that process for too.
“We took your $8.5 billion and instead of building 8.5 billion dollars worth of extra capacity, we built the capacity we were in the process of building anyway and used 8.5 billion dollars of our money to buy back stock”
Honestly this seems like rare reasonable move by the federal government.
I mean, ‘take the money, build an empty factory’ is what tech companies do when you give them a money helicopter.
Maybe we should stop giving them any money and just nationalize these failed businesses that need bailouts? (Yes, yes, Intel isn’t failed - yet - but my point is still valid.)
If they’re important to the national security or whatever, then they’re important enough to go through that process for too.
“We took your $8.5 billion and instead of building 8.5 billion dollars worth of extra capacity, we built the capacity we were in the process of building anyway and used 8.5 billion dollars of our money to buy back stock”