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Welcome back to Forests Over Trees, your tech strategy newsletter. It’s time to zoom-out, connect dots, and (try to) predict the future.

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• Flippa — the easiest way to buy or sell an online business

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• Softr — create no-code apps on top of your data

Trump Takes 10% Intel Stake

Plus: TSMC secrets stolen; Elon sues everyone

⚡ Tech News Takes ⚡
(4 stories)

1. Trump Takes 10% Intel Stake

• What's up: Trump announced the U.S. government is taking a 10% stake in Intel by converting $8.9 billion in Chips Act grants to equity.

  • The government could acquire an additional 5% stake at $20 per share if Intel's foundry ownership falls below 51%.

  • Trump met with CEO Lip-Bu Tan after initially calling for his firing, then became a supporter and negotiated the equity deal.

• So what: Regardless of how you feel about government intervention in free markets, this is revealing. It shows how important chips are, and how few options the US has. If TSMC gets taken over by China or otherwise curbs US access to chips, we are screwed. We risk falling behind technologically, militarily, and economically. No choice but to prop-up a fallback option.

2. TSMC Secrets Stolen

• What's up: Taiwan prosecutors indicted three people for stealing TSMC trade secrets to help Japan's Tokyo Electron compete for 2-nanometer supplier deals.

  • A former TSMC employee surnamed Chen allegedly solicited information from former colleagues after joining Tokyo Electron.

  • Prosecutors are recommending a 14-year prison term and called it the first case under Taiwan's National Security Law for tech theft.

• So what: This is the perfect story to pair with the Intel news… Just as the stakes are getting higher for the US, with a need to create a national champion… Taiwan’s stakes get higher and higher too. Their ability to make the world’s best chips means the world is lining up at their door to buy them. And as long as a few non-China superpowers are in line there, China is deterred from invading / absorbing Taiwan. Fiercely protecting trade secrets is a no brainer for them.

3. Elon Sues Apple and OpenAI

• What's up: Elon Musk's xAI and X Corp are suing Apple and OpenAI over their ChatGPT iPhone integration, claiming it stifles AI competition.

  • The lawsuit alleges Apple "force[s]" users to use ChatGPT as their default and deprioritizes rival apps like Grok in the App Store.

  • Musk claims the partnership gives OpenAI unfair access to "potentially billions of user prompts" from iPhone users.

• So what: This looks a lot like sour grapes. It’s true that having more data/prompts can make your model better, but the reality is that all frontier models are converging on a similar (incredible) level of performance. Plus, I feel pretty strongly that it was OpenAI’s first mover advantage, their product keynotes, and the brand-buiding Sam Altman did that made them dominant early on — not any single recent partnership.

4. Perplexity Wants to Pay Publishers

• What's up: Perplexity AI launched Comet Plus, a subscription tier that shares revenue with publishers when their content is used in AI searches.

  • The company allocated $42.5 million for the partner program and will compensate for human visits, search citations, and agent actions.

• So what: This sounds like a good idea until you put it into context. First, this is not enough money to entice publishers. In contrast, last year’s deal between OpenAI and the Wall Street Journal was rumored to be worth ~$250M… Second, when you are always trolling (offering to buy Chrome, etc.), you become the boy who cried wolf. It’s hard to take you seriously as a would-be partner.