In late August, Howard Lutnick, President Trump’s commerce secretary, flashed his trademark grin as he sat alongside Lip-Bu Tan, the chief executive of Intel, in Mr. Lutnick’s office. They were waiting to cross Pennsylvania Avenue to sign an unusual agreement that would extend Mr. Trump’s influence over corporate America in a way not seen in generations.
Over the previous week, Mr. Lutnick had hammered out a deal with Mr. Tan and other Intel executives to make the government the largest shareholder of the U.S. tech giant. The agreement came together after Mr. Trump said Mr. Tan should resign because of his ties to Chinese companies, a comment that sent the company scrambling.
“America should have shares,” Mr. Lutnick told Mr. Tan, according to a video posted on social media. “Because it’s just fair. And we agreed together, and then you went to your board of directors, and they agreed.”
“This is exactly what Donald Trump is all about,” Mr. Lutnick added.
In recent months, Mr. Trump has announced a series of convention-bashing moves that have expanded the economic reach of the government into corporate America, setting companies on edge. In addition to Intel, the administration has moved to take a stake in U.S. Steel and in a rare earths producer, MP Materials. Officials have suggested that the United States could take shares in other industries like defense and shipbuilding.
Mr. Trump has also talked about taking a cut of A.I. chip sales to China, and has used the threat of tariffs to strong-arm Japan and South Korea into agreeing to put hundreds of billions of dollars into a fund that will be controlled by the United States. The agreement allows Mr. Trump to invest the money largely at his discretion during his presidency.
Mr. Lutnick has publicly praised Mr. Trump for these moves, applauding his deal-making and leadership. But Mr. Lutnick — a former Wall Street bond broker who shares Mr. Trump’s desire to run the government as a business and use unconventional pressure tactics — has played an important role in facilitating and, in some instances, thinking up these plans.