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President Donald Trump has made the U.S. government the largest shareholder in Intel by approving a 10% stake in the struggling American chipmaker.

The move, a sharp break with GOP orthodoxy, has come under heavy criticism from conservatives who support the former president.

“I would be very, very uncomfortable with that idea,” Trump’s former top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Fox Business.

Trump has justified the deal as a savvy investment. “It makes the United States richer and richer,” he said, implying that Intel was just the first in a series of investments. “I hope I’m going to have many more cases like it,” Trump said. “This is called industrial policy in many cases,” he continued, using an old-fashioned term for the idea that the federal government has a legitimate role in determining and directing big industry.

Critics of the deal have wondered aloud whether the decision is socialist. In the past, socialism was defined in part as government ownership of the means of production for the benefit of the working class. By that measure, the decision is no different than what is happening in China or Russia, critics said.

Conservatives were outraged when then-President Barack Obama took control of Chrysler and GM during the financial crisis of 2008–2009. But the political ironies of the situation are stark, to put it mildly. Obama’s decisions, conservatives at the time were at pains to point out, were emergency rescue measures. Chrysler and GM were in danger of going bust. Conservative media would have had a field day if Obama had taken a 10% stake in Intel.

In Trump’s defense, the Intel case is different, he has argued. Trump has also made much of the fact that he structured the deal as an investment, not a bailout. Trump converted nearly $9 billion in grants (already approved by President Joe Biden under his bipartisan Chips Act) to equity for the U.S. government. In the process, he said the deal created $10 billion to $11 billion in immediate value for taxpayers. “Why are ‘stupid’ people unhappy with that?” Trump asked in a statement to the media.

Business leaders are lining up to express concern about the deal. In an SEC filing, the company noted that the “intervention” could hurt its chances of getting future government grants, hit its global sales, and make the company’s operations a target for heavier regulation and government control.

Conservative commentators have been unequivocal in their criticism. Steve Moore, another of Trump’s informal economic advisers, went further. “I hate corporate welfare. That’s privatization in reverse. We want the government to divest of assets, not buy assets. So terrible, one of the bad ideas that’s come out of this White House,” Moore said.

National Review published an editorial under the headline “government shouldn’t get into the chip business.” Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican, sounded an alarm, saying the deal risked creating a “semi-state-owned enterprise a la CCCP” (the former Soviet Union).

Senator Rand Paul echoed that point on social media: “Wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism? Terrible idea.” He went on to castigate the U.S. “central bank” and Trump for “doing the opposite of what [they] said they would.”

Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders, by contrast, has taken to Twitter to celebrate the decision.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick quickly came to Trump’s defense, calling the former president the “best businessman in the United States of America” on Laura Ingraham’s show. “That is not socialism. That’s the best businessman in the Oval Office doing fair things for us,” Lutnick said.

The president of Intel, Lip-Bu Tan, appeared before the White House for an hour-long grilling after Trump asked for his resignation, the Wall Street Journal reported. The reason, the newspaper said, was Tan’s past professional ties to China. Tan met Trump at the White House for a private meeting and then left the White House smiling, visibly having received Trump’s blessing.

At the very least, Intel is now a partly state-owned company. The U.S. government will be a non-voting shareholder in the business, and the government will not be involved in Intel’s business decisions, the Trump administration has said. But given the power of the presidency in America, it’s an open question whether anyone can actually keep the president of the United States from trying to wield power. After all, when the president of the United States is a company’s largest shareholder, there’s almost no avoiding the reality of the situation.

If Intel turns around, Trump can take the credit for bailing out one of the cornerstones of American tech. If the company tanks, taxpayers will pick up the tab. If Trump has his way, this is just the first in a series of such decisions, raising the stakes for everyone involved.

Trump’s Intel move signals the end of the American right as it has been for the past 40 years.

In any event, the Intel stake is a fundamental change in the relationship between the federal government and private business. Trump’s move with Intel shows just how much the former president has come to reshape the GOP’s approach to economic policy.