Intel Closes at New High as Trump Confirms Apple Chip Partnership

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) shares shattered their 52-week record on Thursday, surging as much as 11.9% to touch an intraday high of $135.48 before settling at $133.99 — a gain of $12.89, or 10.6%, on volume exceeding 230 million shares.

The move was triggered after President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “Apple agreed to work with Intel to design and build its Chips in America,” delivering the clearest public validation yet of Intel’s years-long, tens-of-billions-dollar bet to transform itself into a contract manufacturer capable of rivalling TSMC.

Landing Apple — the most coveted potential customer in the semiconductor world — would represent a watershed moment for Intel’s turnaround under CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Neither company has issued a formal statement confirming the arrangement, but preliminary discussions had been circulating since May. Trump’s post, framed as a national manufacturing victory, suggests the relationship has advanced significantly.

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The news added fuel to an already-building Intel rally. Bank of America recently double-upgraded the stock, with analyst Vivek Arya raising his 2030 server CPU total-addressable-market estimate to more than $170 billion and modeling Intel’s earnings power at above $6 per share by that year. Tan has noted that Intel’s advanced 18A process yields are running ahead of internal targets.

A supportive macro backdrop amplified the gains. A U.S.-Iran agreement extending an April ceasefire sent oil prices down roughly 3–4%, easing inflation fears and compressing Treasury yields, providing welcome relief to rate-sensitive chip multiples across the sector.

Intel is now up approximately 240% year-to-date in 2026, underscoring the dramatic rehabilitation of a company that not long ago was written off by many on Wall Street.