The US government’s 433,323,000 Intel shares were worth about $12.09 billion less at 17:16 UTC on 30 October 2026 than at the previous day’s close, by our arithmetic. Intel was trading at $64.18, 30.3% below its 29 October close of $92.07, according to Yahoo Finance.
Closes (30 Oct). Intel closed at $65.76 on 30 October, 28.6% below its 29 October close of $92.07, according to Yahoo Finance. At that close the government’s 433,323,000 shares were worth about $28.50 billion: $11.40 billion less than at the 29 October close, and about 3.2 times their $8.87 billion cost on the 2025 terms, by our arithmetic. The $12.1 billion figure in this piece is the intraday fall in the stake’s value that we measured at 17:16 UTC, when Intel traded at $64.18. CNBC reported that the fall, which it called Intel’s worst day since the 1970s, followed weaker-than-expected guidance “due to a plant shutdown in Israel and ongoing softness in the PC market”. The Next Web reported that Intel guided fourth-quarter revenue of $15 billion to $16 billion, below the $17 billion analysts expected; chief executive Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg that memory pricing “went up a lot”, and said the data centre unit would have done better without shortages of some raw materials and a factory shutdown in Israel.
An X account, @insiderwave, posted at 13:56 UTC that “The Trump administration portfolio is down nearly $12 BILLION today”. The post gives no breakdown. Our count of the Intel shares alone comes to about $12.1 billion at 17:16 UTC, close to the figure in the post, which was published earlier in the session.
Business Pill · Concentration
A one-minute explainer of concentration: how much of a total sits in a few holders. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about this session.
The key insight: At 17:16 UTC on 30 October, Intel’s 30.3% fall had cut the value of the US government’s 433,323,000 Intel shares by about $12.09 billion, by our arithmetic from Intel’s 2026 proxy and Yahoo Finance prices, while the shares were still worth about 3.1 times their $8.87 billion cost on the 2025 terms.
Intel’s 8-K of 25 August 2025 says the company agreed to issue the Department of Commerce “up to 433,323,000 shares”. Of those, 274,583,000 correspond to a $20.74 per share price if all released funds are received by the company. The other 158,740,000 are to be issued into escrow at a $20.00 per share price, released as Secure Enclave disbursements are received. The same filing lists warrants to buy up to 240,516,150 more shares.
Intel’s 2026 proxy statement, filed 23 March 2026, lists the U.S. government as holding 433,323,000 shares, 8.4% of the company, ahead of The Vanguard Group at 8.1%. Our Who Owns Intel page tracks the shareholder register.
Value of the 433,323,000 Intel shares listed for the U.S. government in Intel’s 2026 proxy statement, at the 29 October 2026 close of $92.07 and at $64.18 at 17:16 UTC on 30 October (intraday, Yahoo Finance), against their cost on the terms in Intel’s 25 August 2025 8-K ($20.74 and $20.00 a share). Our arithmetic. Warrants and any other government holdings are not counted.
Still About 3.1 Times the Purchase Cost
On the 8-K terms, the 433,323,000 shares cost about $8.87 billion, roughly $20.47 a share on average, by our arithmetic. They were worth $39.90 billion at the 29 October close and $27.81 billion at 17:16 UTC on 30 October.
At the intraday price the stake was worth about 3.1 times its cost, a paper gain of about $18.94 billion, by our arithmetic. The one-day loss was about 30.3% of the stake’s $39.90 billion value at the 29 October close.
Not the $95 August Price
The government did not buy at the $95.00 price of Intel’s 12 August 2026 share sale. That was a separate public offering, whose buyers were 30.3% below their price at 15:04 UTC, as we covered in the share-buyers piece. The government’s shares were issued on the 2025 terms of $20.74 and $20.00.
We multiplied the 433,323,000 shares in Intel’s 2026 proxy by the gap between the 29 October close of $92.07 and the Yahoo Finance price of $64.18 at 17:16 UTC on 30 October: $27.89 a share, or $12,085,378,470. The 17:16 UTC price is intraday, not a closing price.
The Structural Read
As we read Intel’s filings, the government is Intel’s largest listed holder in the 2026 proxy, with 433,323,000 shares, or 8.4%, against The Vanguard Group’s 8.1%.
As we read the price data, a $27.89 fall per share on 433,323,000 shares is about $12.09 billion, close to the nearly $12 billion in the @insiderwave post.
As we read the 8-K, the government’s shares were issued at $20.74 and $20.00, not at the $95.00 price of Intel’s separate August 2026 public offering.
@insiderwave on X, 30 October 2026, 13:56 UTC
“The Trump administration portfolio is down nearly $12 BILLION today”
Three Implications
FOR THE STAKE’S VALUE By our arithmetic, the 433,323,000 shares went from $39.90 billion at the 29 October close to $27.81 billion at 17:16 UTC.
FOR THE COST BASIS By our arithmetic, the 8-K terms put the cost at about $8.87 billion, roughly $20.47 a share, so the stake was still about $18.94 billion above cost.
FOR THE HEADLINE CLAIM By our arithmetic, the Intel shares alone account for about $12.1 billion; the warrants and any other holdings are not counted.
The framework says “The digital economy rests on a physical foundation that most people in that economy never see.”
As we read it, the government’s Intel shares are a direct stake in part of that physical foundation, chipmaking, and they move with Intel’s share price. The framework was published in December 2025 and does not discuss the government’s Intel stake.
What Is Not Established
The tally counts only the 433,323,000 Intel shares. It does not value the warrants or any other holdings of the US government, so it is not a full portfolio total. The @insiderwave post did not say which holdings or prices it used, and the proxy count is as of its record date; we have not checked for later changes to the holding.
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At 17:16 UTC on 30 October, Intel’s 30.3% fall had cut the value of the US government’s 433,323,000 shares by about $12.09 billion, by our arithmetic, close to the nearly $12 billion in the @insiderwave post. The shares were still worth about 3.1 times the $8.87 billion they cost on the 2025 terms.
A note on sourcing. Share counts and per-share terms come from Intel’s 25 August 2025 Form 8-K and its 2026 proxy statement; prices come from Yahoo Finance, with the 17:16 UTC price on 30 October 2026 intraday. The loss, values, cost and multiple are our own calculations. The ~$12 billion claim is from an X post by @insiderwave, which gave no breakdown.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
