Remember when the biggest tech winners came from Silicon Valley garages and Stanford dorm rooms? Yeah, those days are officially over.
While everyone’s been obsessing over Nvidia’s earnings and whether AI is in a bubble, something way more interesting has been happening in Washington. The U.S. government has basically decided to become the world’s most powerful venture capitalist – and honestly? They’re kind of killing it.
Here’s the deal: Uncle Sam isn’t just throwing around subsidies anymore. They’re taking actual equity stakes in companies they think are crucial for America’s tech dominance. We’re talking 15% of MP Materials, nearly 10% of Intel, and a growing list of other “national champions.”
And before you roll your eyes about government picking winners and losers, check out the scoreboard:
• Intel: Up 77% this year
• MP Materials: Rocketed 276%
• Lithium Americas: Up 50%
• Trilogy Metals: Surged 204%
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is sitting pretty at around 13%. Not exactly a fair fight.
The pattern is pretty simple once you see it. Washington identifies a “chokepoint” in America’s tech supply chain – think rare earth minerals, advanced chips, or AI infrastructure. Then they find the best U.S. company in that space and basically say, “Congratulations, you’re our new national champion. Here’s a massive investment.”
Take MP Materials. They run America’s only major rare-earth mine in California. China controls most of the global supply, which makes Pentagon folks very nervous. So when MP needed funding to expand, guess who showed up with $400 million? The stock tripled.
This isn’t your typical government program. This is strategic capitalism on steroids. The White House has essentially created a modern Manhattan Project for AI, and they’re not messing around.
The crazy part? Most Wall Street analysts are still treating these as isolated incidents. They see the Intel investment and think “interesting government chip policy.” They miss the bigger picture: Washington has fundamentally changed how tech winners get chosen.
Smart investors are starting to figure out the playbook. Look for companies that check three boxes: they’re in a sector Washington deems critical (AI, semiconductors, critical minerals), they’re the clear U.S. leader in their space, and they have the right relationships or strategic positioning.
It’s not exactly rocket science, but it requires thinking like a national security strategist instead of a traditional stock picker. Which sectors keep Pentagon officials up at night? Which supply chains are too dependent on China? Which companies could solve those problems?
The government has already published its roadmap – they’ve literally listed every chokepoint in America’s AI supply chain. That means there are dozens of companies that haven’t received federal backing yet… but probably will.
And here’s the kicker: this is just getting started. We’re in Act 1 of what could be the biggest wealth creation opportunity since the early internet. The rules of capitalism are changing, and Washington is now a co-pilot steering capital into specific sectors.
So while everyone else is debating whether AI stocks are overvalued, maybe the real question is: which companies is Uncle Sam going to anoint next?
Because when the government picks a winner, the stock market tends to listen.