President Trump often touts his administration’s investment in Intel (INTC) — specifically the outsized gains in the chipmaker’s share price since the deal was announced.
But the fortunes of more than a dozen other public companies in the US government’s growing portfolio tell a much less flattering story.
Stocks in other companies that have struck a deal with the Trump administration have tended to move in the opposite direction, often following a common trajectory: a significant bump around the formal announcement, high volatility afterward, and then gains often given back almost as quickly as they came.
Take USA Rare Earth (USAR): Yahoo Finance data shows the stock jumped over 80% in five trading days around the announcement of its deal with the government this January. But the stock gave up all those gains (and more) within weeks, ending Monday at $15.71 per share, far below post-deal highs above $30.
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In fact, most of the companies are now in the red compared with those initial prices. A Yahoo Finance analysis shows that 14 of the 17 public companies that accepted government involvement ended this past week with share prices lower than the day after the deal was announced.
For investors who managed to front-run the government investments, the stocks are also often a losing proposition. Returns for 11 of the 17 companies, when compared to 10 trading days before the formal announcement, are lower now.
“It certainly looks like we’re seeing a sugar high,” noted Tad DeHaven, a policy analyst for the Cato Institute who has studied the government stakes and has been critical of the Trump administration’s approach.
“There looks to be a short-term benefit … but in the long term it comes down to fundamentals,” he said.
President Trump appears at the 2026 Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas on Sept. 10, 2026. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images) ·Tasos Katopodis via Getty Images
A potential warning for individual investors
The Trump administration has taken stakes in more than 30 companies, recently adding an oil drilling venture in Venezuela to its portfolio.
The investments include pieces of many private companies whose valuation trajectories aren’t yet clear. But the evidence from the public markets — where many of these companies are lagging their sector-wide trackers — could be a warning for investors looking to piggyback on government stakes.
The negative returns are even more pronounced given that two of the three companies whose stock is up are Intel and Nippon Steel (5401.T) — which gave the government a “golden share” with outsized voting rights but not an equity stake.
The third gainer since deal day is MP Materials (MP), a rare-earth magnetics company that secured a deal in July 2025.
An investor could have bought shares immediately after that deal was announced and enjoy positive returns today — but the stock peaked last October and is currently trading well below its 52-week high in volatile trading.
The short-term oscillations in administration-backed companies coincide with economic research showing that full or partial government ownership in companies has historically led to worse outcomes for the companies and their stakeholders.
In a 2025 survey of economists, a large majority said that a government taking equity stakes tends to be detrimental to both a company’s performance and its governance standards.
Trump’s focus on Intel
The government’s investment in Intel — and promises of outsized returns for taxpayers — has become a running theme in Trump’s social media posts and is the oft-stated reason his aides give for pursuing additional equity stakes.
The president recently posted an image on Truth Social depicting him as a stock trader in the Oval Office, noting Intel’s stock price fluctuations.
“I’ve made Hundreds of Billions of Dollars on Stocks, and many other type Holdings, for the U.S.A., not myself,” Trump wrote. “Hundreds of billions” is an overstatement, though the government stake in Intel has jumped from an estimated $8.9 billion when the deal was struck to more than $50 billion today.
Intel stock closed Monday at $97.19, down over 5% on the day but still more than quadruple the price in August 2025 just before the deal was announced.
Intel was an early deal that Trump and his team have aggressively tried to replicate. The administration recently took its 32nd company stake as part of a venture called North American Blue Energy Partners, a privately held oil driller that obtained 100-year leases on land in Venezuela that holds an estimated 65 billion barrels of oil.
The government portfolio now spans quantum computing, semiconductors, oil drilling, steel, nuclear energy, and rare earth mineral companies.
The investments are often described by Trump’s team as “passive” but have nonetheless raised worries that the government acting as both an investor and regulator will lead to political forces distorting the market for everyone.
With the government investing in such a wide and unpredictable array of companies, the Cato Institute’s DeHaven foresees trouble in the long run.
The Trump team is “making it up as they go along,” he said, “and they’ve put forth no serious legal analysis for anything, and that all points to the improvised nature of the entire enterprise.”
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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