Intel ‘s stock rose 9% in premarket trading on Thursday, after President Donald Trump said the semiconductor company had agreed to a deal with Apple to design and build chips in the U.S.
“Stupid Presidents took our Economy for granted, and let Taiwan and others steal our Semiconductor Factories,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Apple has agreed to work with Intel to design and build its Chips in America.”
Intel’s stock has seen significant gains recently after struggling for years, having relinquished its dominant market position. The stock has surged 464% in the past 12 months, with the company hitting a market cap of $608.7 billion.
Intel shares were last 8.8% higher, while Apple was up 0.6% in premarket trading.
CNBC has approached Intel, Apple, the White House and the Taipei Representative Office in the U.K. for comment.
For years, Intel largely sat out the AI race as it grappled with manufacturing delays and awaited a major customer for its chip fabrication business.
But CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who took the helm early last year, has revived Wall Street interest in the struggling chipmaker by drawing investments from Nvidia and the Trump administration.
“I decided to help Intel because we need to design and build our Chips right here in America,” Trump said Thursday on Truth Social.
“First, we helped bring in Nvidia, and they agreed to build their first level Chips with Intel,” he added. “Next, Elon agreed to build his TerraFab, the largest Chip Factory in the World, designed together with Intel’s Technology team.”
The Terafab project is the first major outside commitment for Intel’s capital-intensive foundry business, which had only manufactured chips for its own products.
While conflict in the Middle East has disrupted supply chains and seen oil prices skyrocket, the AI boom has so far insulated stocks, especially those tied to infrastructure around the technology.
Nasdaq’s PHLX Semiconductor Sector Index — comprising the 30 largest U.S.-traded chip companies — is up 90% so far this year.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Qantas Airways plans to launch the world’s longest direct flight next year, a service of up to 22 hours nonstop between London and Sydney.
The Sydney-based airline on Thursday unveiled the first of its specially-modified Airbus A350-1000 jets that will regularly make the 17,015-kilometer (10,573-mile) journey from October next year. The flights between cities on opposite sides of the world are expected to take between 19 and 22 hours.
The current longest regularly scheduled direct flight is Singapore Airlines’ route between its city-state base and New York City. The distance of 15,349 kilometers (9,537 miles) is flown in under 19 hours.
A significant difference in passenger comfort between the airlines is that Singapore’s Flight SQ24 doesn’t fly economy passengers.
While a standard Airbus A350-1000 can carry up to 480 passengers, Qantas ’ customized version A350-1000ULR will carry only 238, with 140 of those in what is colloquially termed “cattle class” on flights between London and Sydney.
The farthest an economy passenger can currently fly on a direct flight in the world is with Qantas between London and Perth on Australia’s west coast. That’s a distance of 14,499 kilometers (9,009 miles) flown 16 and 18 hours. Sydney is on Australia’s east coast.
Sharon Petersen, chief executive officer of AirlineRatings, an Australia-based website that ranks airlines around the world on their products and safety, said Qantas economy seats between London and Sydney would have more leg room than most long haul airlines.
Economy passengers would also have access to a so-called Wellbeing Zone between economy and premium economy cabins where they could stretch their limbs and help themselves to drinks and snacks.
Qantas has said passengers will pay more for direct flights when tickets go on sale in February than they do for flights that make a stop in Singapore. Qantas says the direct flights will save up to four hours of travel time.
Petersen said flying business class direct was a great option for passengers who could potentially sleep for eight hours without the interruption of disembarking at Singapore.
But she would prefer to break up the journey than fly 22 hours in economy.
“The reason for that is 22 hours is really daunting. If you get sat next to someone who’s smelly, is perhaps really unwell and coughing, perhaps there’s a baby sitting next to you that’s having an uncomfortable flight or an oversized passenger who really needs two seats,” Petersen said.
She regards two shorter flights as a safer option in economy.
“If you’ve got it wrong on one flight, you might be okay on the next. You get a break,” she said.
Petersen said the smaller passenger configuration of Qantas’ A350-1000ULR was to enhance comfort and to compensate for an additional tank carrying 20,000 liters (5,283 gallons) of fuel.
Such long haul flights rely on premium passengers to make profits, she said.
“Because the flight is so long, they can’t rely on cargo because of the weight. So it really is a passenger-heavy aircraft and a premium passenger-heavy aircraft at that to get the profit margin,” Petersen said.
Once the Sydney-London direct route was established, Qantas said its next ultralong-haul direct service will be Sydney-New York, a shorter distance of 16,013 kilometers (9,950 miles).

We’re still three months or more away from the unveiling of the iPhone 18, and outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook likely won’t be the one to introduce it (given that John Ternus takes over in September).
But Cook has taken an extraordinary step — and arguably, taken one for Ternus — by warning consumers that this iPhone will be more expensive than its predecessors, thanks to an ongoing memory chip price crunch that won’t end anytime soon.
“We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers,” Cook told the Wall Street Journal in a phone interview.
“But the situation has become unsustainable … the main point is, unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable.”
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Cook, who added that Apple had already been absorbing the cost of higher component prices in 2026, didn’t specify which products would be more expensive, or by how much.
But with all eyes on the iPhone 18 launch this fall, it’s likely Cook is preparing the ground for Apple’s flagship product to pass on some of the extra component costs to customers — with increases as high as $200 above iPhone 17 prices.
Apple is still one of the largest customers in the world for memory storage, but AI companies have muscled into the game. A company called Techinsights, cited by the Journal, notes that the memory and storage components inside the iPhone 18 Pro are likely to cost Apple an extra $150 for parts alone, compared to the iPhone 17.
A recent report claimed that the iPhone Pro 18 would keep its $1,099 price from the iPhone 17 Pro and that Apple would continue to absorb the difference.
Cook, always savvy about Apple’s image in the media, appears to want to squash that rumor as soon as possible.

The average price of U.S. gasoline fell below $4 a gallon on Thursday for the first time in months, after Iran and the United States signed a preliminary agreement to cease hostilities for 60 days and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline fell to a fraction of a penny below $4, down from $4.03 the day before, according to the AAA motor club.
Still, gas prices hovered just below $3 a gallon before the first U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February. They spiked to around $4.50 a gallon in May, as throttled energy supplies from the Middle East pushed up the price of crude oil, a crucial ingredient in gasoline.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan, which helped mediate the deal, said in a post on X that the memorandum of understanding had been signed electronically by the U.S. and Iranian presidents. As a result, the agreement to begin reopening the strait and lifting the U.S. naval blockade would “enter into force with immediate effect,” he wrote.
Oil prices have fallen about 10 percent this week alone. Even so, gas prices remain about a third higher than before the start of the war.
“We’re getting close to the numbers we were before the war started,” President Trump said on Monday in France at the annual Group of 7 summit.
Other fuel prices are also beginning to ease. Diesel cost $5.13 a gallon on Thursday, down from more than $5.60 a gallon a month ago, offering relief to truckers, farmers and other big users of the fuel.
High gas prices have bled into Americans’ lives beyond the pump, including travel. For example, airfares were up nearly 27 percent in May, owing in part to surging jet fuel costs.
Economists caution that it takes time for lower oil prices to be reflected fully in the cost of gasoline. Regional differences remain significant, driven by variations in state taxes, distribution costs and refining capacity. Drivers in parts of the Great Plains and the South have been among the first to see prices drop below $4, with some areas approaching $3.50 per gallon. On the West Coast, however, prices remain well above $4 a gallon.
Aruni Soni contributed reporting.

Apple customers may soon pay more for their favorite devices as the company faces soaring costs for memory and storage chips.
The tech giant’s CEO, Tim Cook, told The Wall Street Journal that Apple has tried to absorb the increases but can no longer fully protect customers from higher prices. Cook did not say when prices would rise or which products would be affected.
“Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable,” Cook told the outlet. “We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.”
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Apple’s next major product launch is expected in September, when the company is likely to unveil its iPhone 18 lineup.
The remarks come as artificial intelligence (AI) companies buy up huge amounts of memory and storage chips, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Research firm TechInsights estimates Apple would need to add about $270 to the next iPhone Pro model to maintain its profit margins, the outlet reported.
APPLE CHIEF TIM COOK SAYS IT WAS THE ‘RIGHT TIME’ TO STEP DOWN AS CEO
Cook said DRAM chips are a key concern because more of them are now being used for AI servers.
“There’s less supply at a time when consumers want devices and the memory guys are passing along huge price increases,” Cook told The Wall Street Journal. “We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That’s the bottom line.”
Ticker Security Last Change Change % AAPL APPLE INC. 295.95 -3.29 -1.10%
Apple may use its cash reserves to help expand chip supply, Cook said, but the company does not plan to build its own memory factories.
“This is a hundred-year flood,” said Cook. “I’ve never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years.”
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Apple announced earlier this year that Cook will step down on Sept. 1 after 15 years as chief executive.
He will transition to executive chairman of the company’s board of directors and will be succeeded by longtime Apple veteran John Ternus, the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering.
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Apple could not immediately be reached by FOX Business for comment.