WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The deal that struggling chipmaker Intel struck with President Donald Trump to give the U.S. government a 10% stake in the company is still under discussion, the White House said on Thursday.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the deal was a “creative solution” proposed by Trump that the Department of Commerce was putting into action.
“The Intel deal is still being ironed out by the Department of Commerce,” Leavitt told a regular news briefing. “The t’s are still being crossed, the i’s are still being dotted,” she said. “It’s very much still under discussion.”
Asked to elaborate, a White House official said some aspects of the Intel deal, namely a $3 billion Secure Enclave award from the Department of Defense, were not yet fully implemented.
It was not immediately clear if Leavitt’s remarks suggested the Intel deal could still be revised in some way.
Intel finance chief David Zinsner told an investor conference on Thursday that Intel received $5.7 billion in cash on Wednesday night as part of the deal.
The Trump administration has also delayed announcing long-promised tariffs on imported semiconductor chips, with an administration official saying the news was not expected this week.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Leslie Adler and Lisa Shumaker)
