An Intel Corp investor recently sued CEO Chen Liwu and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over the chipmaker's unprecedented sale of a 10% stake to the federal government last year.The lawsuit was filed secretly in Chancery Court in Delaware, but attached public documents state that the case seeks "financial compensation" for fiduciary breaches by executives of the technology giant. The shareholder lawsuit also names the U.S. Department of Commerce as a co-defendant, according to a case summary.
Neither Intel nor the agency immediately responded to requests for comment.
The Intel deal comes as the Trump administration has framed the U.S. stake in the struggling semiconductor giant, the largest U.S. semiconductor company, as a national security issue. Last month, the Pentagon moved to label Anthropic PBC a "supply chain risk" after the artificial intelligence giant imposed certain restrictions on military applications of its technology.
While the shareholder lawsuit against Chen and Lutnick has not yet been made public, a related court filing noted that existing information — including corporate regulatory filings and Trump’s statements — suggests the government may have pressured Intel to transfer 10% of its shares at a price well below market value.
Trump posted online in August that "I paid zero dollars for Intel, which has a market value of about $11 billion." According to court documents, Intel's own accounting disclosures acknowledged that the company "allocated a value of $5.81 per share to the 275 million shares of common stock issued to the U.S. Department of Commerce" when Intel stock was trading at $24.80.
According to one of the relevant court filings, public information suggests that much or substantially all of the price the government paid for its equity actually came from billions of dollars it had already planned to pay Intel related to existing research and development subsidies.
The document states that the per-share price appears to be derived by working backwards by "dividing the total grant amount (i.e., the amount awarded to Intel under the Direct Funding Agreement and the Zone Award Commitment but not yet disbursed) by the number of shares of Intel common stock required to represent a 9.9% equity interest."
The lawsuit appears to target certain provisions in the stock agreement that commit the government to support Intel's current directors in any board election. Public documents show that these terms are likely to make a successful proxy fight impossible.
The filing also noted that shareholder lawsuits may seek to tie the deal to a $100 million pro bono agreement between the government and top white-shoe law firm Skadden, which advised Intel on the stock sale.
It is one of the few major law firms to pre-emptively strike a much-criticized deal with Trump after he issued punitive executive orders against several other legal agencies. Court filings last Thursday said Skadden had a "potential conflict of interest" due to his pro bono service agreement with the government.
The four companies targeted by Trump's executive order all won in court, and a series of legal challenges culminated early this week. The Justice Department first said it would abandon the appeal, and then changed its position.
Under court rules, the shareholder lawsuit may be unsealed this week. The regulations provide a five-day period for the deletion of confidential information.
Intel investor Richard Pesner is represented by Heyman Enerior Gattuso & Hirzel LLP.
The case number is Paisner v. Tan case, Chancery Court of Delaware, case number 2026-0307, complaint filed under seal on March 5, 2026.