A US stake in chipmaker Nvidia Corp is “not on the table,” US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said yesterday.
“I don’t think Nvidia needs financial support, so that seems not on the table right now,” Bessent said in an interview on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” program.
Bessent raised the possibility that the US President Donald Trump’s administration could take stakes in other industries.
Photo: Dado Ruvic, Reuters
“Could there be other industries where that we’re reshaping, something like ship building? Sure, there could be things like that,” Bessent said.
He noted that “these are critical industries that we have to be self-sufficient (in) in the United States.”
On sectors like defense, Bessent said: “I don’t know if we need to take stakes in defense companies.”
“We’ll see whether the defense companies are fulfilling their mission in terms of providing adequate and timely deliveries for the US military, as opposed to maybe an over-emphasis on the shareholders,” he added.
Bessent’s remarks came after Trump on Monday said he wants to make more US government investments in healthy American companies, even as critics warn that such a role for the government could limit corporate strategy and market agility, and questions are raised about the impact on consumers.
The Trump administration last week announced a near-10 percent stake in chipmaker Intel Corp. It previously intervened to complete the purchase of US Steel Corp by Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp in June, taking what Trump called a “golden share” that gives Washington say over its operations.
It also took a stake in rare earths company MP Materials Corp, and brokered a deal with chipmakers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc to take 15 percent of revenue from sales to China of chips that had previously been prohibited.
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