The Trump Administration Is All In on Intel

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_03] This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the makers of Claude. K. Ju co-founded GenSpark, an all-in-one AI workspace. He credits his success to collaborating with trusted partners. Hear from him at the break.

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_01] Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Tuesday, July 14th. I'm Imani Moise for The Wall Street Journal. More and more iPhones have been landing in repair shops with no cracks, no water damage, and no signs of life. We're breaking down why some USB-C chargers are behind the broken tech. Then, nearly a year ago, the U.S. government became Intel's largest shareholder. Just how involved has the Trump administration been in charting the chipmaker's future?

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_01] We're looking at the company's comeback and how it's raising bigger questions about the government's role in the tech industry. But first, chargers are supposed to keep your phone alive. But many of the cables and power adapters on the market are sending devices to an early grave. The cheapest USB-C charger on the shelf could end up costing you big money on repairs or a replacement phone.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_01] WSJ's Natalie Kaufman spoke with experts and engineers about the uptick in broken phones they're seeing, and joins me now to explain why not all chargers are created equal. Natalie, why is this happening more often now than it was a few years ago?

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_04] When Apple switched its ports from Lightning to USB-C, it kind of opened up the floodgates for people to buy these cheap dupe chargers, and a lot of those aren't really up to scratch in terms of the safeguards and the ability to properly handle the voltage going through the wire. A repair specialist I spoke with said she's seeing so many devices come in completely fried, so their motherboards are just shot, their touchscreen function isn't working, and she says that has a lot to do with charging damage.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_01] A lot of people assume that a USB-C cable is just a cable. Why does the quality of the cable matter so much?

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_04] It's actually a huge safety issue. So in a lot of cases, if a wire isn't properly handling the current, you can zap yourself, you can start a fire, or in this case, especially worrisome, if you're keeping your device for a long time, it can zap your phone. So a USB-C cord should be certified by the Universal Serial Bus Implementers Forum, and that's where USB comes from. And so those go through a lot of different tests to make sure that they're safe and compatible with your device.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_01] It's not just cables, though, right? The brick or the actual part that plugs into the wall matters, too.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah, absolutely. So the brick has a lot to do with kind of talking with the wire to make sure that the voltage is flowing correctly into your device. So it's kind of this communication, what some people call a handshake negotiation, in terms of getting the electricity to flow properly into the device. And so a really cheap off-brand brick or adapter is also not going to be great for keeping your device around for a long time.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01] Okay, let's paint a scenario. I'm standing in a convenience store. My battery's at 2%. What should I be looking at when I'm trying to figure out which cable to buy? And what are the red flags?

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_04] Definitely look for a shorter versus a longer cable, because a longer cable sometimes can be inefficient with the charge, just because the voltage has to travel farther. So a shorter cable can be a better option. And then also definitely look for the USB, the certified logo. Aren't those labels easy to fake, though? Yeah, and that's been a big problem. Basically, anyone can paste what looks like a USB graphic or insignia onto any charging cord or adapter. So it's definitely good to buy from a trusted brand,

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_04] such as Anker or Belkin or Apple or something like that.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01] So say I'm at work and I see a charger on my colleague's desk, but I'm not really sure where it came from. Will charging my phone there one time be a risk to my phone?

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_04] If for a long period of time you've got your phone plugged into something that you got for $5 at the gas station, like that can zap your phone, it's not usually something that all of a sudden, poof, your device is fried. So it's just something to look out for in terms of if you definitely want to extend, like, the lifespan and the health span of your devices, just to make sure that you're buying something of high quality. A lot of the experts said, you know, there's this idea where you could buy a $5 charger now, but if it compromises your $1,000 phone, how much are you really saving long term?

[00:04:23] [SPEAKER_04] So definitely something to keep in mind when you're perusing cords so that you're not completely zapping something you just spent a ton of money on.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_01] That was WSJ's Natalie Kaufman. A quick reminder, we want to hear from you. Have you seen an AI-generated post that you thought was real? Shoot us an email to tnb at wsj.com or leave us a voicemail at 212-416-2236. That's 212-416-2236. Or if you're a listener on Spotify, leave us a comment. Coming up, a look inside the Trump administration's partnership with Intel.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_01] That's after the break.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_03] When Anthropic shares a new Claude model, it's an exciting day in the GenSpark offices, says co-founder Kei Ju. Here he is to tell us more about the partnership.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_02] We're always exploring and trying the newest technology to execute faster. All our engineers are very curious about the latest advancement for the latest models. So every time we got this request, it's kind of like an invitation to the party.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_01] Intel has been one of this year's biggest turnaround stories. After years of falling behind rivals, the once-dominant chipmaker has surged back into the spotlight. But strong demand for semiconductors isn't the only force behind its comeback. In a highly unusual move, the Trump administration has taken a hands-on approach to the company, twisting the arms of major potential customers and partners, including Apple, NVIDIA, and SpaceX,

[00:06:09] [SPEAKER_01] all of which have signed deals with Intel since the government stake was announced. WSJ reporter Robbie Whelan joins me now to explain why Intel has become one of the government's biggest bets and the risks of its involvement. Robbie, so why did the White House decide that Intel was worth this level of intervention?

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00] Well, the past two presidential administrations have shared one economic priority in particular, and that has been to bring back chips manufacturing to the United States and to really make the U.S. a place where precision, high-tech manufacturing is happening. And the reason for that is because a lot of people in upper levels of government have been worried for some time now that so much of the chip manufacturing business is concentrated in places like Taiwan,

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_00] increasingly South Korea, Japan, and even China. And chips have emerged with the explosive growth of AI as basically the most important products on planet Earth.

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_01] How much of Intel's turnaround is a result of government support, and how much credit goes to company management?

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00] There's three major factors that have driven this turnaround. One is just pure luck. The AI boom has entered a new phase, and the agentic boom has led to this real boon for Intel, which is that people need hundreds of thousands of what are called CPUs. They're not the most advanced AI chips, but they're really Intel's bread and butter. They've seen their sales really go up. But the bigger factor has been the Trump administration's support. They took $9 billion in federal grants

[00:07:43] [SPEAKER_00] that Intel had not yet received, but had been promised. And they converted those grants immediately overnight into an equity stake for Intel. So the government gets Intel stock, Intel gets cash. And that cash has been tremendously helpful for Intel. It's allowed them to invest in a lot of high-tech machinery and allowed them to just kind of meet the demand for CPUs that's out there. And the second way the Trump administration's support has really mattered is that Donald Trump is a deals guy.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00] And so he has these relationships with people like Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, Jensen Wong, the CEO of NVIDIA, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. And these are the guys who really need a chip manufacturing business to partner with. And so all of these big customers, they all have relationships with the Trump administration. It's fair to say that all of them want to be in good stead with the president and want to see him happy. And so when the president calls and says,

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_00] look, we've got this company we're invested in, Intel, and we really like to see them succeed. Why don't you go do business with them? They listen very carefully when they get that call. And the other factor, which is that Intel has a new CEO. Well, not brand new, but last March, they hired Lipu Tan. This was after a pretty tumultuous couple of years under the previous CEO. Tan is a very well-connected veteran tech executive. He's a lot of connections in Asia. He knows the chip industry really well. And he has made a series of changes since returning.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_00] He's been poaching really smart engineers and executives from places like TSMC and also companies like Samsung, SK Hynix. And all of these hires, what they have in common is that they're geared towards getting the manufacturing business at Intel back on its feet.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_01] What are the risks of having government this involved in corporate affairs?

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_00] At a really basic level, there's a capital allocation question, which is to say, if you're taking taxpayer money, do you want to put it in the private sector or do you want to invest it in services and programs that benefit taxpayers? The other thing is that people who believe in free market primacy don't think that the government should be the one picking winners and losers. They think that companies should compete in a free market on their merits and on the quality of their products and on how well they provide services. And that should be what determine who wins and who loses,

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_00] not some decision by the federal government to use taxpayer dollars to put their finger on the scale. And then the other final criticism is that Intel has for four or five years now been almost like an afterthought in the AI chip industry. But as the computing world has moved beyond personal computing and into data center computing, into AI computing, they've really fallen out of the conversation.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_00] And what that's meant is that they have let certain manufacturing techniques languish. They've let certain customer relationships languish. And the sad fact of the matter is that this foundational Silicon Valley company has kind of lost the trust of the broader customer base. And so there's a risk here that if you put public money into a company like Intel, maybe they don't get it right. And if that happens, then there might be pressure on the government to cut their losses and say, OK, we tried to save this company.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_00] It didn't work. Let's sell our stake. And that would be a real disaster for everybody because Intel would lose its primary backer. The government would look as though they'd made a mistake. And then America loses its champion. So there's execution risk here. In other words, that's more complicated and more, I'd say, controversial, given that Intel is using government money to try to turn itself around.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_01] That was WSJ reporter Robbie Whelan. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. If you're a listener on Spotify, be sure to leave us a comment. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansi with supervising producer Katie Ferguson. I'm Imani Moise for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back later this morning with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_03] Anthropics Cloud is AI for problem solvers, like Jen Sparks' KJu. Here's what this partnership means for him.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_02] Jen Spark is the all-in-one workspace. We do AI spreadsheet, AI slides, AI documents, all kinds of work for normal white-collar workers. We are a very small startup, so we cannot do everything by ourselves. And working with trusted partners is really, really important. In the collaboration, the openness is the key. Some of the secrets you kept today will be worthless tomorrow. The success of the partnership, it comes to deep mutual trust.

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