The Trump administration’s move to acquire a 10% stake in Intel has drawn fire from some free-market conservatives, who say the government should not be so involved in private companies.

In a historic move, the struggling chipmaker agreed to give the U.S. government a 10% equity stake in the company last week. White House officials have indicated that more deals could be coming.

Trump and the White House argue that the move is smart for national security and global competitiveness. But rank-and-file Republicans and free-market evangelists have long been averse to the federal government intervening in corporate affairs, and some Republicans have spoken out against the move.

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), one of the most libertarian-leaning members of Congress, hinted that the Intel stake acquisition was a move away from capitalism and toward socialism. He called it a “terrible idea.”

“If socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism?” Paul wondered in a post on social media.

Advancing American Freedom, a group founded by Vice President Pence, also opposes the move from the Right. The group’s president, Tim Chapman, told the Washington Examiner that the deal is “part and parcel of a larger trend” from the administration, making free-market conservatives uneasy.

“When you zoom out a little bit and you start to look at it, you’re like, wow, the administration and their supporters are really pushing aggressively into the free-market system in a way that would have been anathema to conservatives even five years ago, let alone 10,” Chapman said.

Chapman said he fears some of the precedents that Trump sets could be used by Democrats later.

“You can just so easily imagine how a President Gavin Newsom would just drive a truck right through these precedents,” he said, referring to the Democratic governor of California.

Outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) also criticized the idea during remarks last Friday, indicating that he felt such a move violated free-market principles.

“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 [the Chinese Communist Party],” Tillis said, according to Politico. “You’re going to have to explain to me how this reconciles with free-market capitalism.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who isn’t shy of voting against Trump’s wishes, also attacked the move and pointed out that Congress didn’t authorize the U.S. government to buy stock in private companies like Intel.

“Our government should not have ownership in private companies,” he said in a post on X. “There are so many specific problems with an arrangement like this, but fundamentally, this is not who we are as a country.”

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) also expressed opposition to the U.S. getting a stake in Intel. On social media after the Friday announcement, he said that big news is not always good news.

“State-sponsored capitalism? America will not outperform China by being more like China,” Davidson said.

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council and a potential pick to be the next Federal Reserve chairman, pointed out on Monday morning that the creation of a sovereign wealth fund is something that the president talked about while on the campaign trail.

Hassett called the Intel deal a “special circumstance” because of the large amount of CHIPS Act spending going Intel’s way, but emphasized Trump’s desire for the U.S. to build up a sovereign wealth fund.

“I’m sure that at some point there’ll be more transactions, if not in this industry and other industries,” Hassett said on CNBC.

The $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act, passed in 2022, was designed to boost U.S. research and production of semiconductor chips, a key component in artificial intelligence and other technologies. The idea was to help the U.S. compete globally with China and other countries.

The deal involved an investment of $8.9 billion in the company through repurposing CHIPS Act grants. Intel CFO David Zinser said the company received $5.7 billion on Wednesday as part of the deal.

Trump has defended the deal and hopes there will be “many more cases like it.”

“You do have stupid people say, ‘Oh, that’s a shame.’ It’s not a shame. It’s called business,” he told reporters at the White House. “A company like Intel, as you know, it’s had difficulty, I want them to do well. I want them to do what they do, but I want them to do well in particular.”

Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the Washington Examiner that he dislikes government subsidies going to Intel or other similar companies. He pointed out that Intel had received government subsidies before, and if they worked, they shouldn’t be faltering right now.

“If the subsidies were working, Intel would have been flying high by now,” Crews said. “So clearly, this is not actually about market efficiency or technological advancement.”

TODD YOUNG SAYS TRUMP’S FEDERAL INTEL STAKE VIOLATES CHIPS ACT HE WROTE

Crews said that the U.S. has been “throwing money” at tech companies for some time, but he sees that escalation into equity ownership as a concerning change. Crews also said that the move overshadows Trump’s deregulatory agenda, which he has supported, and cuts into the heart of free enterprise.

“Anything that Trump does in this regard is going to completely eclipse anything he’s done on the deregulatory front … because if the federal government is taking stakes that just makes us no different from any other kind of a crony operation, and it doesn’t work,” he said.