Trump’s State Capitalism, by the Numbers

Trump has also taken to unprecedented levels of other forms of state intervention in the economy, from tariffs (and preferential exemptions for favored firms) to export taxes and regulatory bullying.

But the clearest sign of the Trump administration’s turn toward state capitalism was taking a direct stake in—or negotiating a share of the profits from—nearly a dozen companies. Trump has embraced state capitalism in a way that few of his predecessors have, but which is textbook for state intervention in countries such as China and Russia. It’s a trend that only seems poised to accelerate in 2026.

Here’s a list of companies into which Trump is funneling billions of taxpayer dollars.

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Atlantic Alumina Co.

In the most recent addition to this list, the Trump administration announced in January that it was taking a $150 million equity stake in a Louisiana-based gallium company called Atlantic Alumina Co., or ATALCO.

Gallium, an obscure yet vital chipmaking input, has been a top concern of Washington’s since China imposed export restrictions on the metal a few years ago. The United States does not currently produce any gallium—which is a byproduct of alumina production—and ATALCO has said that it expects to eventually meet the total U.S. gallium demand.—Christina Lu

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Intel

Arguably the highest-profile deal of its nature, Trump announced in August that his administration would take a roughly 10 percent stake worth nearly $11 billion in the once storied but now struggling semiconductor manufacturing company, making the U.S. government Intel’s biggest shareholder.

While Trump boasted that the government “paid nothing” for those shares, Intel still technically received taxpayer money—in the form of grants approved under the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act—in exchange for letting the government in.—Rishi Iyengar

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Korea Zinc

In December, the Trump administration made a deal to take a 40 percent equity stake in a refinery that the South Korea-based firm Korea Zinc will build in Tennessee; as part of the deal, the U.S. government and unnamed U.S.-based investors will also own 10 percent of the firm itself.

The Trump administration has cheered the benefits of the partnership with Korea Zinc. According to U.S. officials, the refinery could have an annual output of 540,000 metric tons of critical minerals when it opens in 2029. Starting in 2026, Washington will also have priority access to Korea Zinc’s global production, according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.—Christina Lu

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Lithium Americas

The U.S. government now owns an equity stake in Lithium Americas, the firm developing one of the biggest known lithium deposits in the United States. The White House sees the project—which is known as Thacker Pass and is slated to open by 2028—as an essential step toward slashing U.S. lithium dependence on other powers, namely China, which is the world’s biggest lithium processor and third-largest producer.

Thacker Pass has long garnered bipartisan support, with the Biden administration approving a more than $2.3 billion federal loan to the project. But the Trump administration said that it would reevaluate the loan, despite its previous approval, and ultimately announced that it had made a deal in which the U.S. government received an equity stake in the company and project in exchange for the Trump administration releasing some of that funding, alongside other provisions.—Christina Lu

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MP Materials

The Trump administration made one of its highest-profile moves to revive the U.S. rare-earths industry last year when it unveiled a multibillion-dollar deal that would make the U.S. Defense Department the biggest shareholder in MP Materials, the firm that runs the biggest and only operational rare-earths mine in the United States today.

Rare earths have emerged as one of the United States’ biggest vulnerabilities in its trade war with China, and the White House has spent much of the past year intensifying efforts to strengthen U.S. mineral supply chain security.

Under this deal, which will see the Defense Department take a 15 percent stake in MP Materials, MP Materials will build a new factory for rare-earth magnets. The Defense Department, in turn, has committed to purchasing the factory’s output and establishing a price floor.—Christina Lu

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Nvidia

The Silicon Valley giant has become the world’s most valuable company off the astronomical demand for its semiconductor chips to power the global artificial intelligence boom, and Trump has sought to cash in on that surge in rather unconventional ways.

In December, Trump allowed Nvidia to sell advanced chips to China—reversing some export control restrictions that the Biden administration had put in place—in exchange for a 25 percent cut of all of those sales. That’s an upgrade from the initial deal that Trump had agreed to in August with Nvidia and its chief rival, AMD, for a 15 percent cut of all their sales to China.—Rishi Iyengar

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Trilogy Metals

Eager to ramp up domestic mining, the Trump administration has taken a stake in Trilogy Metals, a Canadian firm that is advancing a controversial copper and zinc mining project in Alaska. The Biden administration had opposed the development of a massive road to the deposit, which would cut across pristine Alaskan wilderness and sparked environmental opposition; Trump now appears to be moving full-speed ahead in the other direction in backing the project and investing tens of millions of dollars in the firm.—Christina Lu

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U.S. Steel

The first of Trump’s major forays into state capitalism, his direct intervention into the takeover battle between Japan’s Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, ended with a compromise normally only seen in Europe: a golden share that gives Trump himself, as the U.S. president, veto power over the new company’s investment and production decisions. The golden share will pass to the next U.S. president.

In late November, Trump appointed two Commerce Department officials to represent him and the U.S. government on the board of the newly merged company. While other steel companies around the world grapple with overcapacity and a transition to “green steel”—steel manufactured with lower carbon emissions—the new Nippon-owned U.S. Steel will be grappling with a very different set of directives.—Keith Johnson

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Vulcan Elements/ReElement Technologies

As part of its rare-earths push, the Trump administration has now also taken stakes in two rare-earth start-ups: Vulcan Elements and ReElement Technologies. The White House deal includes two separate Defense Department loans—one for $620 billion to Vulcan and one for $80 million to ReElement—as well as $50 million in federal incentives from the Commerce Department and hundreds of millions more in private capital.

The companies say that this funding should allow them to scale up their collective magnet production to 10,000 metric tons annually in the next several years. In exchange, the Defense Department will receive warrants in both firms, while the Commerce Department will get a $50 million equity stake in Vulcan Elements.—Christina Lu

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Westinghouse

The renaissance in civilian nuclear power generation has been a focus for the Trump administration, with a slew of executive orders and legislative changes meant to speed up regulatory reviews and jump-start the construction of new reactors.

In October, the U.S. government got an option to take an 8 percent stake in Westinghouse Electric, the biggest U.S. manufacturer of reactors—its AP1000 is the gold standard for modern nuclear plants—with an option to take an even bigger stake if the company goes public again. Currently, it is co-owned by two Canadian firms, a uranium fuel supplier and a clean-energy investor. In the meantime, the “strategic partnership” with the U.S. government is meant to spur at least $80 billion in nuclear power investment.—Keith Johnson

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xLight

The Trump administration has agreed to take an equity stake in xLight, a Silicon Valley-based lithography start-up focused on developing more advanced semiconductor manufacturing  processes. While the size of the government’s stake has yet to be disclosed, the Commerce Department has said that it will invest up to $150 million into the start-up.—Christina Lu