Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary sends harsh message on Intel stock

It wasn't too long ago that I remember seeing “Intel inside” as a mark of quality. The semiconductor company became a Goliath player in personal computers on the belief that its chips were better than rivals.

Nowadays? Notsomuch.

We no longer rely as much on PCs and laptops, at least outside of work, thanks to increasingly powerful smartphones powered not by Intel but more often by companies like MediaTek and Qualcomm, which command 38% and 28% global market share in smartphone system-on-a-chip shipments, according to Counterpoint Research.

Intel is nowhere to be seen in that market, but that's not the company's only problem. Its market share in artificial intelligence chips — the fastest growing semiconductor market — is also essentially a rounding error relative to GPU Goliath Nvidia.

Instead, Intel is still focused on PCs and laptops, but even there, it's been losing ground to rivals, including Advanced Micro Devices, which has steadily chipped away at its dominance. According to Tom's Hardware, Intel used to dominate AMD by a 9:1 ratio in desktop PCs, but that's fallen to 2:1 in 2025.

Still, the U.S. appears unfazed, given its recent decision to take a 10% ownership stake in the beleaguered semiconductor company. This move has drawn criticism, including from Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, who delivered a blunt take on Intel on Aug. 25.

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary isn't impressed by the U.S. government's investment in Intel.

Image source: TheStreet

Key Intel statistics

Q2 Revenue: $12.9 billion, flat year over year.
Q2 Net loss: $2.9 billion, versus a loss of $1.6 billion one year ago.
Q2 Adjusted Earnings per share: -$0.10, down 12 cents from last year.
Current Assets: $43.375 billion, down from $50.8 billion last year.
Current Liabilities: $35 billion, up from $32 billion one year ago.
Long-term debt: $44 billion, down from $48.3 billion last year.
PC CPU market share: 76.1%, down from 78.9% last year, according to Tom's Hardware.
Smartphone market share: ~0%
Q2 Data Center Artificial Intelligence Segment revenue: $3.9 billion, up from $3.8 billion last year.

Financial data source: Intel Q2 10-Q.

The US government acquires Intel stock

Shares owned: 433.3 million Intel common shares.
Purchase price: $20.47 per share.
Investment: $8.9 billion.
Ownership stake: 9.9%.
Warrants: can increase stake by 5%.

The U.S. government acquired a 9.9% non-voting ownership stake in Intel in a move that's drawn praise and pans from supporters and critics alike.

Those in favor say the deal is a great way to compensate the government for taxpayer dollars given via grants while encouraging U.S. technology manufacturing. Opponents say it may set an uncomfortable precedent, creating an uneven playing field because of potential favoritism.

“The last thing we are going to try and do is take a stake and then try to drum up business,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on CNBC on August 19. “There is no talk of trying to force companies to buy from Intel.”

The move may be necessary to prop up Intel, given its struggles.

Intel is on shaky financial ground

The acquisition is funded by $5.7 billion in unpaid grants previously awarded to Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, plus $3.2 billion from the Secure Enclave program.

“We look forward to working to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership,” said CEO Lip-Bu Tan in an Intel statement.

The money should provide Intel with a little wiggleroom, but the companies financial struggles are significant.

In Q2, revenue was essentially unchanged from last year, concerning given rival AMD posted 32% sales growth and Broadcom reported 20% growth. Qualcomm saw its sales grow 10%, and while Nvidia hasn't reported its results yet (it does so on Aug. 27), it saw 69% top-line growth in its most recently reported quarter ending April.

Intel's lack of growth, plus arguably bloated expenses and ongoing losses from its struggling foundry business forced former CEO Pat Gelsinger out the door. New CEO Tan is currently slashing costs to try to return the company to profitability.

“We need to rightsize and scale back the company,” said Tan on Intel's Q2 conference call. “Our last full fiscal year of positive adjusted free cash flow was 2021. This is completely unacceptable.”

Kevin O'Leary has sharp words on US Intel investment

Kevin O'Leary, who has net worth of about $400 million, uses a barbell investment strategy that involves higher-risk venture capital investment on one end and diversfiied and relatively conservative dividend investments on the other end.

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He isn't a fan of the U.S. decision to take an equity stake in Intel while it's struggling.

“The U.S. government just announced it’s taking a stake in Intel, and let me be clear: I abhor this idea,” wrote O'Leary in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “America has thrived for over 200 years because the government stayed in its lane.”

O'Leary explained his view in more detail in a CNBC interview.

“We let dead old companies die,” said O'Leary. “I have no interest in taking my tax dollars and giving it to a company that has performed so miserably.”

Is Intel stock a buy?

It will take a while before we know whether or not Tan's strategy to get Intel back on track pans out.

In addition to slashing costs, Tan recognizes Intel's been late to the AI party. He hopes to get in front of the next AI wave by moving “up the abstraction stack into system and software. This is the area where Intel has traditionally been weak or entirely absent.”

This won't be an easy lift and it will require a lot going correctly to anticipate where this fast-moving AI market is heading.

“This will take time, but it will be vital for Intel to stay relevant in the next wave of computing. In addition, we see the AI market continuing to evolve, and we are concentrating our efforts on areas we believe we can disrupt and differentiate like inference and agentic AI. We need to start by first understanding emerging and real AI workloads, then work backwards to design software, systems and silicon to enable best outcome for those particular workloads,” said Tan.

O'Leary thinks it's too little too late.

“Intel should have been sold for car parts three years ago,” said O'Leary. “I do not want to invest in it. Why would anyone want to own this thing. Take it behind the barn and shoot it. That's what should be happening.