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President Donald Trump has officially made the U.S. government Intel’s largest shareholder by ordering a 10% stake in the struggling American chipmaker. The move breaks with decades of Republican economic orthodoxy and has drawn a firestorm of criticism from conservatives who usually support the president.

Trump has tried to frame the deal as a savvy investment that will make America “richer and richer.” He has also suggested the government’s Intel move is just a first step: “I hope I’m going to have many more cases like it,” he told reporters, teasing further efforts. By intervening so directly in the fate of a giant corporation, Trump is hearkening back to an economic approach that some economists call industrial policy, where the government proactively shapes and directs large swaths of the economy.

Critics are wondering where it all stops — or if this decision constitutes socialism. Socialism has long been defined by the antithesis of capitalism: state ownership of the means of production in the name of the common good. On that metric, Trump’s decision looks much like what happens in China, Russia, and other authoritarian regimes.

The politics are also rich. When Barack Obama nationalized Chrysler and General Motors in 2008–2009 to avert what many feared was an imminent collapse of these iconic American brands, conservatives described it as a necessary rescue operation. But Trump allies tell me that had Obama instead taken a 10% stake in Intel, conservative media would have accused him of straight-up communism.

Trump is arguing that this is a very different case, a good investment rather than a bailout. He said he converted almost $9 billion in grants already given to the company under President Joe Biden’s bipartisan Chips Act into government equity. By doing so, he claimed to have secured $10 billion to $11 billion in value immediately for the taxpayers. “Why are ‘stupid’ people unhappy with that?” he asked.

A chorus of conservatives has piled on. Trump’s former top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said on Fox Business that he was “very, very uncomfortable with that idea.” Informal adviser Steve Moore was blunter: “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.”

The conservative magazine National Review ran an editorial claiming that “government shouldn’t get into the chip business.” Senator Thom Tillis said the move would lead to “a semi-state-owned enterprise a la CCCP,” or Communist Soviet Union. Senator Rand Paul said something similar on X, formerly Twitter: “Wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea.”

Defenders of the move have pushed back on these claims, arguing that Trump is doing no more than future-proof America’s chip industry. Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted in support of the move. “Intel’s latest share sale has made President Trump its largest shareholder,” Sanders tweeted. “Imagine if President Biden or President Sanders took that money and invested it in research, development, and infrastructure instead of handing it over to corporations in the name of ‘Corporate Welfare.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a former hedge fund manager who says he often talks with Trump about financial matters, flew to Mar-a-Lago to join him for the Intel announcement. He quickly hopped on Laura Ingraham’s show to explain that Trump is not, in fact, a socialist. “That is not socialism. That’s the best businessman in the United States of America in the Oval Office doing fair things for us,” he said.

Intel itself issued a notice to investors today saying the deal might “deteriorate our ability to secure future government grants.” The move could hurt Intel’s sales overseas and will likely result in greater regulation of its business, it said. Intel already appears to be struggling — it announced in March that it would be cutting 15% of its workforce. The company has a market value of about $110 billion, half what it was a year ago. (It was up 4% on the news of Trump’s order.)

According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump ordered Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign due to past ties to China. Trump reportedly changed course and spoke warmly of Tan following a personal White House visit. “I liked him a lot, I thought he was very good,” Trump said.

Intel’s stockholders’ agreement gives the U.S. government “perpetual, non-voting stock” to make sure it has no business or management role in the company. Skeptics note that if the president of the United States is a company’s largest shareholder, business as usual is difficult to imagine.

Trump now has a major stake in the success of Intel’s turnaround and the politics surrounding it. If the company bounces back, Trump will have a major victory on which to run for reelection. If not, taxpayers will pick up the tab. With Trump saying he’s going to do more of these, the question of whether this is socialism, capitalism, or just plain Trumpism is sure to get louder.

Intel’s new order with Trump has set the stage for one of the biggest changes in how the federal government relates to business since Ronald Reagan was in office.