The administration's approach upends a decades-old view of the U.S. economy, in which the government only took corporate stakes in rare emergencies like the 2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent bailout of U.S. auto companies. Intel is struggling, but still has a cash cushion of $9 billion and a market value of $105 billion.
To critics, the Intel move - along with the White House's pressure on the U.S. Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, its use of emergency powers to slap
tariffs on imported goods and involvement in various mergers - threatens the U.S. business world's nimbleness.
"We're moving from a pure capitalistic economy to a much more state-engaged economy... That's a huge change for America and over where we've been. I've never seen an era like this," said Bill George, former Medtronic CEO and executive education fellow at Harvard Business School.