The Next Industry Washington Could Quietly Buy
I’ll be honest: I didn’t have the U.S. federal government buying equity in publicly traded companies on my 2025 bingo card.
But here we are.
In just the past few months, Washington has taken substantial equity positions in key strategic firms:
Intel (INTC) — Roughly 9.9% common equity stake, acquired in August 2025 using remaining CHIPS Act funds and new Secure Enclave allocations. Structured as a passive stake with no board rights, but includes warrant coverage for additional upside.
MP Materials (MP) — On July 10, 2025, the Department of Defense bought convertible preferred shares with warrants, which could convert into ~15% of the company—instantly making DoD a top holder.
U.S. Antimony (UAMY) — Company leadership disclosed to Fastmarkets that they are in active financing discussions with DoD to “significantly expand the capacity of the country’s only antimony smelter.”
This isn’t normal behavior.
It’s targeted. Strategic. And it suggests a bigger playbook is forming.
Why It’s Happening: Rare Earths, China, and National Security
This shift started after China weaponized its dominance in rare earths — the critical elements needed for everything from EV motors and wind turbines to missile guidance systems.
Here’s how it unfolded:
Early 2025 — U.S. raises tariffs on Chinese EVs, batteries, and strategic tech.
April 4, 2025 — China slaps export licenses on seven rare earth elements (samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, yttrium) and rare earth magnets. Licensing delays effectively froze shipments.
May–June — U.S.-bound rare earth exports collapse, down 90%+ YoY in some categories. Prices of dysprosium and terbium surge.
July — Trade talks spark a partial rebound (660% MoM off the bottom), but volumes remain far below 2024 levels.
Aug–Sept — DoD scrambles: ramps up equity/warrant deals (MP), stockpiling, and fast-track permitting for new rare earth separation and magnet plants.
The reasoning is obvious:
Rare earths like neodymium, dysprosium, and terbium are the backbone of high-strength permanent magnetsused in EVs, wind turbines, and industrial robots.
Yttrium and europium go into lasers, sensors, and advanced electronics.
Lanthanum and cerium power catalysts, glass, and battery alloys.
And the U.S. military depends on them for missile guidance systems, fighter jet actuators, radar, and communications gear.
China controls 80%+ of global mining and processing.
Washington can’t build an AI-powered future if Beijing controls the supply chain for the physical inputs.
So, the government is doing something it hasn’t done in decades: buying equity stakes in strategic resource companies to secure supply.
Parallel Track: Powering the AI Buildout
At the same time, the administration is engineering an unprecedented buildout of AI infrastructure — and figuring out how to power it.
Jan 20 — Trump begins second term, immediately orders review of all Biden-era AI regulations and permitting rules.
Jan 21 — Launches the “Stargate” AI Initiative, a public–private plan targeting $500B+ in AI infrastructure (massive data centers, chip fabs, fiber networks).
Jan 23 — Signs EO 14179: Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI, establishing a policy of “ideologically neutral” AI systems for federal use.
April 3 — DOE opens federal land for private AI data centers and energy projects to cut costs and accelerate buildout.
July 23 — White House releases “America’s AI Action Plan”: 90 actions to accelerate innovation, build infrastructure, and ensure U.S. dominance.
Sept 4 — Hitachi Energy announces a $1B transformer plant in Virginia, citing Trump’s AI Energy Dominance agenda — the first wave of private capital chasing this buildout.
Trump’s strategy is clear:unlock federal land and cheap power, slash permitting for 100MW+ hyperscale sites, and rebuild the grid and transformer supply chains to handle the load.
He’s openly framing AI as a strategic race with China — and positioning energy infrastructure as the foundation of that race.
The Administration’s Quiet Bet on America’s Forgotten Energy Backbone
Here’s where it gets interesting.
While most investors are focused on chips, data centers, and rare earths… the administration is quietly rebuilding the base layer of energy infrastructure that could underpin it all — and almost no one is paying attention.
In January, Trump signed an EO declaring “maximum energy output” on federal lands, ordering agencies to fast-track approvals, loosen environmental compliance, and reclassify this resource as a “mineral of strategic importance.”
By March, Interior had approved two long-stalled mine expansions in Montana, unlocking decades of new reserves and signaling a push to ramp production, not retire it.
In April, the White House went further — banning federal agencies from discriminating against this resource in grid planning and even encouraging its use to power AI data centers.
Regulators have since granted pollution-rule exemptions to dozens of aging plants and blocked utilities from retiring units that provide “critical grid stability.”
The administration rolled out $130M in federal grants to redevelop legacy energy sites, aiming to attract new industry and jobs to regions Wall Street wrote off.
And in September, federal energy regulators created bonus capacity payments for plants that stay online in grid-constrained regions and instructed DOE to use these legacy sites as anchor points for new grid infrastructure.
In other words:
While the market thinks this industry is dying…the federal government is quietly rebuilding it from the ground up.