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The federal government officially became Intel’s largest shareholder this week after President Donald Trump signed off on the government’s 10% stake in the ailing American chipmaker.

The decision breaks with long-standing Republican economic orthodoxy and has prompted conservatives, who typically support the president, to sound the alarm.

“The Biden Administration’s decision to nationalize Intel is WRONG,” read a tweet from conservative radio host Erick Erickson, while Dave Schwab of American Greatness said, “The government should not be investing in private companies.”

Trump brushed aside the criticism, touting the deal as a “smart” investment that would make the United States “richer and richer.” The president also signaled that Intel may be the first in a line of similar cases. “I hope I’m going to have many more cases like it,” Trump said.

Trump’s move amounts to a return to a previously discredited approach that some economists call industrial policy, a way for the state to shape and support the development of strategic sectors directly.

Trump critics have asked, if this isn’t socialism, what is? After all, for decades, socialism has been associated with state control of the means of production for the benefit of the wider society. By that standard, Trump’s move doesn’t look that different from what the government does in China or Russia, for instance.

The political irony of the situation hasn’t been lost on observers. When former President Barack Obama moved to nationalize Chrysler and GM during the Great Recession, conservatives grudgingly accepted it as a temporary rescue of iconic American firms. Obama taking a 10% stake in Intel, Trump allies say, would have been condemned as communism by conservative media.

Trump’s Intel deal has an important difference in the president’s telling. This isn’t a bailout, he said; it’s an investment. Trump noted that he converted “almost $9 billion in grants,” a form of aid that had already been committed to the company under President Joe Biden’s bipartisan Chips Act, into equity owned by the U.S. government. By turning aid into equity, Trump claimed he created $10 billion to $11 billion of value on day one for American taxpayers. “Why are ‘stupid’ people unhappy with that?” he asked.

The reaction among Trump’s informal and former advisers has been less sanguine. Larry Kudlow, Trump’s former top economic adviser, told Fox Business that he was “very, very uncomfortable with that idea.”

Steve Moore, a former informal Trump adviser, was more colorful in his condemnation. “I hate corporate welfare. That’s privatization in reverse. We want the government to divest of assets, not buy assets. So terrible, one of the bad ideas that’s come out of this White House,” Moore said.

A National Review editorial warned that “government shouldn’t get into the chip business.” Sen. Thom Tillis warned in a statement that the deal risked creating a “semi-state-owned enterprise a la CCCP.” Former President Trump’s Senate ally Rand Paul echoed the point on X, noting, “Wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders was among the few cheering Trump’s move, characterizing it as the government using its economic muscle to shape and direct the industry to serve the public good.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was quick to defend the decision in a phone interview with Laura Ingraham. “That is not socialism. That’s the best businessman in the United States of America in the Oval Office doing fair things for us,” Lutnick told Ingraham.

Intel didn’t sound so sanguine. In a required SEC filing, the company noted the deal could cause it to lose out on future government grants, make it harder to sell abroad, and subject the firm to increased regulation. Intel, which has been struggling mightily and earlier this year announced a 15% workforce reduction, has a market cap of around $110 billion, down 50% this year. Shares ticked up 4% in the hours after Trump’s announcement.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump first demanded the CEO of Intel, Lip-Bu Tan, step down from his post for past associations with China before reversing himself after a White House meeting. “I liked him a lot, I thought he was very good,” Trump said afterward.

Intel has said that the U.S. government will be a non-voting shareholder, but given that the president of the United States is now Intel’s largest shareholder, it’s hard to imagine the government remaining truly hands off.

Should Intel recover and stabilize, Trump will claim the success as a model for American investment. Should it falter, the taxpayer will foot the bill. Trump has said he will be making more deals like this, so we may see more opportunities to determine whether Trump is right.

In the meantime, the Intel stake has marked a fundamental shift in the relationship between government and private business in the United States and just how far Trump has remade the Republican Party’s economic message.