https://www.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/white-house-makes-bold-2-billion-bet-on-quantum-stocks

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White House makes bold $2 billion bet on quantum stocks

The government just became a shareholder in nine companies racing to build the next computing breakthrough.

For most of American economic history, the federal government has been a customer of innovation, not an owner of it.

The Pentagon writes checks for fighter jets. NASA pays contractors to build rockets. The Energy Department funds the national labs that work on science nobody else will pay for. But the government has rarely owned the upside.

That changed during the 2008 financial crisis when Washington took stakes in banks and automakers, then quietly unwound most of them. It changed again last year when the U.S. took a 9.9% stake in Intel as part of an earlier CHIPS Act agreement, according to Reuters.

And it changed in a much bigger way in the third week of May.

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Outstanding. Glad to see investment partnerships like this and I can't help but think tech will benefit as a result.

The nine companies are IBM, Global Foundries, QBTS, Rigetti Computing, Infleqtion, Atom Computing, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, and Diraq.

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The kicker is the deal structure. The Department of Commerce will receive "a minority, non-controlling equity stake in each company as a condition for receiving the funds to enhance the return for the U.S. taxpayer,"

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Heck yeah! Let's make a profit off this for taxpayers.

BigRobSA said:

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flown-the-coop said:

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So before someone pipes in that this I bad Trump, at least he is doing something in telling that will benefit America and and Americans.

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English, mother****er, do you speak it!?

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I am struggling myself to understand it. Give me a moment to clear my air and try again.

flown-the-coop said:

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How does this support environmental & social responsibility, diversity / equity / inclusion and what the flip does this due to stop climate change and systemic racism?!?!?!

The above is not sarcasm, it's how the Biden admin judged every program and action.

So before someone pipes in that this is 'Bad Trump'… at least he is doing something with companies and industries that will benefit America and Americans.l and not appease the Davos globalists and their agendas.

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This is good Trump…other than the GF investment (they have some shady backers) this is very good stuff…particularly if we expect to compete with China in frontier tech.

Yesterday said:

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Meh. Seems ripe for fraud and abuse. What will the government do to other companies or individuals to make sure that stock is a winner?

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How is this ripe for fraud and abuse?

America makes public investment, holds public investment, divests public investment and it's all done in full and utter transparency.

You could argue whether or not we should be doing this and if it's a good investment, but on involuntary seizure sayinf "muh fraud and abuse" makes little cents.

Solyndra on line 2

Sid Farkas said:

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Solyndra on line 2

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Hated with Solyndra, hated it with the Detroit bail-out, good precedent for me to hate this.

Not much different from local governments giving property tax exemptions to lure new businesses, but continue to make existing business bend over and take it full thrust.

Sid Farkas said:

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Solyndra on line 2

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As a reminder, Tesla was covered under the same loan.

Clear regulations and incentivize risk taking but keep the government out of the equity markets.

lb3 said:

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Clear regulations and incentivize risk taking but keep the government out of the equity markets.

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Put the government in equity markets and get them out of the federal grant business. At least here everyone can see where the tax dollars go and we hopefully get a good return on our investments.

I generally don't like government involvement in markets and businesses but for better or worse this is a very strategically important area of technology and the USA absolutely must dominate quantum computing and AI. The alternative is the Chinese communist party having supremacy and then naturally doing commie things with it.

I'm not a fan of government picking winners and losers. Government shouldn't be a profit center. Needs to perform its duties in the most cost effective way possible. It's like Enron telling its HR and accounting departments that they needed to be a profit centers.

The US govt is rightly concerned over encryption etc. I personally believe that "secure" encryptions have already been broken by quantum (specifically IBM).

We are in serious catch up mode. This announcement just confirms that.

MouthBQ98 said:

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I generally don't like government involvement in markets and businesses but for better or worse this is a very strategically important area of technology and the USA absolutely must dominate quantum computing and AI. The alternative is the Chinese communist party having supremacy and then naturally doing commie things with it.

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I tend to lean here. This is at least a legitimate groundbreaking technology as opposed to green energy bull**** where the Democrats set fire to money.

I'm fine with the government investment if politicians are barred from trading while in office

Over_ed said:

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The US govt is rightly concerned over encryption etc. I personally believe that "secure" encryptions have already been broken by quantum (specifically IBM).

We are in serious catch up mode. This announcement just confirms that.

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My thoughts exactly. This is analogous to the creation of IC chipmaker consortium Sematech and using DoD money to help fund it, back in the late 80s when the Japanese companies were kicking our ass with regard to Moore's Law.

Is this better or worse then the way dims give govt backed loans to their money laundry operations, oops I mean solar companies?

I think we should be very very careful and wary about any public investment. It's very easy to control the means of production. At the same time, when government funds enterprise grants, it often means we are subsidizing research, and privatizing the profits. That seems backwards and the public should get an ROI when it invests.

First principles:
1. The government should fund moonshots that create asymmetric upside for the populace if the moonshot works out. If there is not an obvious wide reaching public benefit, the government should not be involved
2. Regulations should limit government ownership to perpetual minority ownership, but insist on a fiduciary board seat to represent public interest. If I am a shareholder through taxes, someone on the board ought to represent my interests.
3. Clearly defined divestment criteria, such as reaching a multiple on investment above 2 or something similar.
4. The populace must understand that this is a portfolio of investments in inherently risky propositions, and many investments will be written off to $0.

Just imagine if the government had put the Social Security funds into a S&P fund since the time George W tried to get it done. If that was done then, we wouldn't be talking about it going bankrupt.

Interesting precedents Trump has been creating.

If the DNC and U.S. Congressional Dems and the elected state office holding Dems were organized and smart strategic forward thinkers / planners, they would applaud it and then go whole hog (to a 100x level) with these precedents the next time they hold the reins of power.

Notice I said "If".

The current Dem Party is unorganized, and is not forward thinking.

To those who are "no Government investment, period", why? Here's the way I look at it. What are we doing on this planet and why do we have a government in the first place if not for basically protection from harm and public infrastructure impossible to have without scale and organization. Some of these 'investments' are really just public infrastructure.

I have no issue on grants for rare diseases, and asymmetric upside moonshots where with enough scale we get substantially cheaper energy or costs. But so long as we're funding it, either through grants or simply being on the cap table, the investor (USG) ought to get some kind of return instead of good vibes that puts extra funds back in the treasury. That seems like good stewardship of receiving public goods (we're all better off) and public funds (we made money off of this).

The obvious downside is Government is far less efficient and far more bureaucratic than the private sector. To that extent, I want the government as an allocator of capital, and not as an operational partner. So, some prudent guardrails to stop the government from getting in its own way and letting private enterprise stay in its own lane.

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To those who are "no Government investment, period", why?

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...because it is my taxpayer money that they stole that they are investing.
...because they think they are better at choosing the winners than I am.
...because the government now has claws in the companies (i.e. what happens when the next Biden takes charge).

The proper way to promote investment is to reduce taxes, and encourage saving rather than spending.

Rydyn said:

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To those who are "no Government investment, period", why?

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...because it is my taxpayer money that they stole that they are investing.
...because they think they are better at choosing the winners than I am.
...because the government now has claws in the companies (i.e. what happens when the next Biden takes charge).

The proper way to promote investment is to reduce taxes, and encourage saving rather than spending.

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If you think your tax dollars are stolen and that investing is spending, then I do not want you anywhere near me and my investments nor those of the Country. HTH.

Rydyn said:

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To those who are "no Government investment, period", why?

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...because it is my taxpayer money that they stole that they are investing.
...because they think they are better at choosing the winners than I am.
...because the government now has claws in the companies (i.e. what happens when the next Biden takes charge).

The proper way to promote investment is to reduce taxes, and encourage saving rather than spending.

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Taxation = theft. Ok, what's your alternative solution to funding the military and police?
Better at winners and losers - Probably no better or worse, but what they do have that you don't is scale, and some moonshots require immense scale. NASA -> SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Claws in company - Very fair criticism and one that I share. Prudent regulation to limit to minority ownership and board representation (minority), and no operational control.

Malibu said:

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Rydyn said:

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To those who are "no Government investment, period", why?

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...because it is my taxpayer money that they stole that they are investing.
...because they think they are better at choosing the winners than I am.
...because the government now has claws in the companies (i.e. what happens when the next Biden takes charge).

The proper way to promote investment is to reduce taxes, and encourage saving rather than spending.

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Taxation = theft. Ok, what's your alternative solution to funding the military and police?
Better at winners and losers - Probably no better or worse, but what they do have that you don't is scale, and some moonshots require immense scale. NASA -> SpaceX and Blue Origin.
Claws in company - Very fair criticism and one that I share. Prudent regulation to limit to minority ownership and board representation (minority), and no operational control.

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He or she said REDUCE taxes, not ELIMINATE taxes.

I remember when Republicans were anti federal government ownership of companies. L

Gordo14 said:

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I remember when Republicans were anti federal government ownership of companies. L

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I don't.

Rydyn said:

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To those who are "no Government investment, period", why?

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...because it is my taxpayer money that they stole that they are investing.
...because they think they are better at choosing the winners than I am.
...because the government now has claws in the companies (i.e. what happens when the next Biden takes charge).

The proper way to promote investment is to reduce taxes, and encourage saving rather than spending.

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Bingo. Conservatives no longer exist. It's insane what this forum has turned into.

I mean it would be great if the federal government found a way to make money other than stealing it from its citizens.

How many of those are on Trump's 278-t form? Bet it's all of them.

Concerned Moderate Ag said:

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How many of those are on Trump's 278-t form? Bet it's all of them.

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Fortunately all stock picks by pols are public knowledge. Many an investor has followed them to reap some benefit.

Rydyn said:

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To those who are "no Government investment, period", why?

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...because it is my taxpayer money that they stole that they are investing.
...because they think they are better at choosing the winners than I am.
...because the government now has claws in the companies (i.e. what happens when the next Biden takes charge).

The proper way to promote investment is to reduce taxes, and encourage saving rather than spending.

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Maybe we will get back to this in the next iteration of wherever this land mass ends up after the current USA experiment ends.