House Republican slams Trump's private company stakes: 'Not the conservative position'

WASHINGTON, DC: An outgoing GOP lawmaker, Rep Don Bacon (R-NE), ripped President Donald Trump and his administration for taking stakes in around 30 private companies and labeled the move as anti-conservative.

Since June 2025, the federal government has taken, or proposed taking, an ownership position in as many as 30 companies, by the Cato Institute’s count.

Don Bacon criticizes government equity stakes in companies

Bacon shared an MS NOW segment with Cato Institute economics expert Scott Lincicome on Thursday, August 6. The outgoing Republican slammed the government, writing, “This is not the Conservative position.”

In the clip Bacon shared, Lincicome fumed, “The reality is that, since last June, we’ve gone from the government owning zero shares in zero private companies to now owning equity stakes in 30 different companies. In some cases, the government is now the largest shareholder.”

“As that Bloomberg story indicated, often these equity stakes are coerced. If you want your subsidy, if you want your contract or your permit, or if you don’t want the president—in the case of Intel—to call your CEO a Chinese agent, you’d better hand over those equity stakes. It’s a big, big problem, and it raises massive economic questions about capital misallocation and cronyism,” he argued.

Bacon’s criticism comes amid Trump’s ongoing attacks against the rising tide of Democratic Socialists in the country.

Earlier, MS NOW host Joe Scarborough argued that the Trump government was engaging in socialism by taking stakes in private companies.

“This is socialism. This is pre-[Margaret] Thatcher style socialism! And the great irony, here you have Republicans, small government Republicans, running up the deficits, the biggest debt ever, crippling this country, not future generations they’re going to cripple this generation with the biggest budgets ever, the biggest spending ever, the biggest socialized schemes ever,” Scarborough fumed about the government’s move.

Federal Government expands ownership across 30 companies

Since 2025, the US government has acquired stakes in around 30 companies.

The holdings include a "golden share" in US Steel that gives Washington veto rights over major corporate decisions, a $400 million investment in MP Materials, and an $8.9 billion stake in Intel after CHIPS Act grant funding was converted into equity.

The transaction made the federal government Intel's largest single shareholder.