Intel Financial Scandal Intensifies as Asset Liquidations Begin
Written by Chriss W. Street
Intel Corporation began crisis forced liquidations with the fire-sale its entire $147 million investment in its crucial semiconductor chip design partner ARM Holdings, just over four months after the Biden-Harris Administration awarded Intel $29.5 billion of taxpayer cash, loans, and tax abatement from The CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS Act) stimulus.
According to an SEC regulatory filing, Intel sold its entire 1.18 million share stake in UK chip design firm Arm Holdings for cash. The disclosure came just days after the company disclosed liabilities of about $32 billion versus cash and cash equivalents of just $11.3 billion in its latest financial statement, causing its stock to crash -26 percent.
The survival driven retrenchment by Intel caused its global semiconductor manufacturing competitors’ stocks to spike higher: with AMD up +4.39%; Qualcomm up +3.70%; Nvidiaup +3.46% and Samsung up +2.12%.
The US Department of Commerce announced on March 20th that Intel Corporation was awarded $8.5 billion of federal cashfunding from the CHIPS Act, coupled with $10 billion in tax abatement and $11 billion in loans to construct microchip manufacturing plants in the key 2024 battleground states ofArizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Ohio. The announcement promised creation of 6,000 high-paying construction jobs and 3,000 manufacturing jobs for a new state-of-the arts Intel foundry in Chandler, Arizona.
Two days later on March 22nd, Intel and ARM signed a memorandum of understanding to finalize their multigeneration Emerging Business Initiative to enable system-on-chips (SoCs)based on Intel’s 18A node process that will be crucial to start-ups creating disruptive Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions that consume huge amounts of energy.
ARM CEO Rene Haas trumpeted the partnership: “AI growth depends on giant leaps in compute, efficiency and scalability, and our industry must create on-ramps for the startup community to share in these advancements. Our collaboration with Intel Foundry through the Emerging Business Initiative enables the next generation of innovators to bring their ideas to life and define the next waves of breakthrough innovation.”
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger told CNBC the announced ARM divestment, 15,000 job cuts and eliminating dividends was caused by financial turbulence that is forcing Intel’s biggest restructuring “since the memory microprocessor transition four decades ago.”
Gelsinger said the company’s financial losses were compounded by its decision to speed-up Core Ultra PC chip production,which are built to manage AI workloads. But many Silicon Valley analysts have complained for years that Intel had undermined its competitiveness by recruiting low-cost foreign engineers to replace American engineers.
The Mountain Top Times recently reported that Vice President Kamala Harris took full credit for passing the CHIPS Act legislation in a White House CHIPS Act Statement on Feb. 22nd, that she claimed would fund 25 and 50 separate projects with total investments of $160–200 billion to create 25,000–45,000 new jobs in 2024.
The Mountain Top Times has called the White House to inquire if Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris has any comment about the expanding CHIPS ACT scandal.
