President Donald Trump‘s former Vice President Mike Pence appeared on CNBC today to discuss tech giant Nvidia’s plan to buy $5 billion stake in Intel, the semiconductor manufacturing company that agreed last month to give the U.S. government a 10 percent stake in the company.
[Note: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who told Bloomberg that the Trump administration was not involved in its deal with Intel, met with Trump on Monday during his state visit to the UK, where Trump praised Nvidia’s success, joking to Huang, “You’re taking over the world, Jensen, I don’t know what you’re doing here.”]
Pence said of the Nvidia investment in Intel after the U.S. took part-ownership: “State ownership of business is very common in China, it’s very common in Russia. Taking a percentage of the sales of Nvidia, taking a percentage of the stock of Intel is inconsistent with free market principles, and I think it’s taken our country to a very perilous place and I think we need to resist that very strongly.”
Mike Pence: "State ownership of business is very common in China and Russia. Taking a percentage of the sales of Nvidia, taking a percentage of the stock of Intel is inconsistent with free market principles, and I think it's taken our country to a very perilous place and I think… pic.twitter.com/yJfo4BoOw6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 18, 2025
Pence added: “I really do believe what’s happening with tariffs, what’s happening with state ownership businesses represents a departure from the free market principles that’s been at the heart of the Republican party. And for the sake of our long-term prosperity, we need to get back to those principles.”
Pence is not the only conservative to object to Trump’s decision to have the federal government own a percentage of American companies — or to reference a communist government for comparison. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) responded to Trump’s proposed 10% stake in Intel by saying: “I don’t care if it’s a dollar or a billion dollar stake in an American company, that starts feeling like a semi-state owned enterprise, à la CCCP.”
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