Markets did not wait for the fine print. Intel stock jumped over 13% on Friday, hitting an intraday high of $130.57—clearing the company's dot-com era closing high of $75.81, set back on the year 2000, by roughly 72%. For context: 365 days ago, Intel was trading near its 52-week low of $18.96.
Which products Intel would manufacture for Apple is still unclear, but Apple ships over 200 million iPhones per year on top of millions of iPads and Macs. It comes at an opportune time for Intel, as Nvidia and AMD have been steadily eating into its market share.
Right now Apple relies almost entirely on TSMC for its chips. Intel might focus on lower-volume products first and provide some diversification for Apple.
The White House played a direct role in getting the deal done. President Trump personally advocated for Intel to Tim Cook at a meeting at the White House. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was also involved in the outreach. With this deal, Intel may be getting a major business boost (as the charts show), and the Trump administration may score a political victory after pushing very vocally about the importance of local U.S. chip manufacturing. Apple's participation, in turn, could help polish its relationship with the Trump administration.
Apple's first Intel-manufactured chips, if the timeline holds, would be roughly 18 months away.
