While the Media Panics Over AI, Prisons Use It to Stop Rapes, Fights, and $200M Headcounts

Government-Owned Capitalism: Brilliant Strategy or Socialist Disaster?

The federal government is no longer just regulating American companies. It is becoming a shareholder in them. That may be a smart national-security strategy. It may even produce a return for taxpayers.

But it also crosses a line that should make every believer in free enterprise ask a serious question:

If government is going to own American companies, who is going to keep politics out of the boardroom?

The Trump administration has made a legitimate case for using federal resources to strengthen industries essential to our national security. Semiconductors, critical minerals, advanced manufacturing and quantum computing are significant industries. America’s dependence on foreign nations, particularly China, for strategic technologies and materials has been a vulnerability for far too long.

I support rebuilding American manufacturing. I support strengthening domestic supply chains. I support reducing our dependence on hostile nations. And if taxpayer money is going to be committed to a private company, there is a reasonable argument that taxpayers should participate in the financial upside rather than simply writing another government grant check.

But that does not eliminate a bigger question: Should the federal government be an owner of private companies at all? And if we cross that line, where are the guardrails?

This question became even more relevant on September 8 when the Commerce Department announced over $300 million in CHIPS Act funding for quantum computing companies D-Wave Quantum, Rigetti Computing and Quantinuum, with the government receiving minority equity stakes in return.

This follows the government’s larger investment in Intel. In 2025, the United States acquired approximately a 9.9% stake in Intel in an $8.9 billion transaction to strengthen domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Intel said the investment would be passive, with no board representation or special governance rights.

Those restrictions are important, but they raise an obvious question: If we recognize the danger enough to restrict one transaction, why have we not established clear........

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