The Trump administration keeps taking stakes in chipmakers — it may come back to haunt them

These ongoing entanglements raise the question of whether the government is best positioned to help these companies prosper. The Trump administration is planning to buy a direct stake in yet another chip technology company. Earlier this week, the Commerce Department announced that it had signed a letter of intent to buy up to $150 million of xLight, a startup that focuses on lithography, a critical part of the semiconductor-manufacturing process.