TSMC chairman and CEO Dr. C.C. Wei ruled out acquiring Intel’s semiconductor facilities in the US, revealed during the company’s Q3 2024 earnings call, and when asked again in January 2025, he refused to comment.

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Fast-forward a couple of months and President Trump is back in the White House, and swirling reports of President Trump not supporting US chip factories being owned by foreign entities (like TSMC) and that it is “unlikely” the Trump administration would support a foreign company operating Intel’s facilities.

US Vice President JD Vance attended the recent AI Action Summit in Paris where he said that the Trump administration “will ensure that the most powerful AI systems are built in the US with American design and manufactured chips“.

President Trump has new semiconductor tariffs on the way, and TSMC is quickly building new chipmaking facilities on US soil, with recent rumors that TSMC would build new CoWoS advanced packaging facilities at its Arizona fab site. In the middle of all of this is a troubled Intel, and fresh rumors that TSMC would perform a tech transfer to help out Intel Foundry… or to outright buy Intel’s foundries.

In October 2024, Morgan Stanley analyst Charlie Chan asked TSMC boss C.C. Wei if his company had thought of acquiring a part of Intel’s semiconductor fabs in the long term. Wei responded, saying: “The answer is no. Okay, no, not at all,” adding that Intel was a very “good customer” for TSMC, and that it was sending “sizable business” to the company.

After the Q3 2024 earnings call, Wei was asked again if anything had changed about buying Intel’s fabs, where the TSMC CEO said: “They are very good customers. I like them, and they are very important to TSMC’s business also“.