{"id":4855,"date":"2026-01-06T10:36:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/06\/trump-orders-divestment-in-2-9-million-chips-deal-to-protect-u-s-security-interests\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T10:36:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T10:36:45","slug":"trump-orders-divestment-in-2-9-million-chips-deal-to-protect-u-s-security-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/06\/trump-orders-divestment-in-2-9-million-chips-deal-to-protect-u-s-security-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump orders divestment in $2.9 million chips deal to protect U.S. security interests"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the unraveling of a $2.9 million computer chips deal that he concluded threatened U.S. security interests if the current owner, HieFo Corp., remained in control of the technology.<\/p>\n

The executive order cast a spotlight on a business deal that drew scant attention when it was announced in May 2024 during President Joe Biden\u2019s administration. The deal involved aerospace and defense specialist Emcore Corp. selling its computer chips and wafer fabrication operations to HieFo for $2.92 million \u2014 a price that included the assumption of about $1 million in liabilities.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

But Trump is now demanding<\/a> that HieFo divest that technology within 180 days, citing \u201ccredible evidence\u201d that the current owner is a citizen of the People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n

HieFo was founded by Dr. Genzao Zhang and Harry Moore. According to a press release<\/a> that came out after the deal closed, plans for the technology acquired from Emcore were to be overseen by largely the same team of employees in Alhambra, California.<\/p>\n

Zhang, who was a vice president of engineering at Emcore before becoming HieFo\u2019s CEO, pledged to \u201ccontinue the pursuit of the most innovative and disruptive solutions\u201d with technology designed for purposes that would include artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

HieFo didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

Emcore was a publicly traded company at the time of the HieFo deal, but was taken private last year by the investment firm Charlesbank Capital Partner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the unraveling of a $2.9 million computer chips deal that he concluded threatened U.S. security interests if the current owner, HieFo Corp., remained in control of the technology. The executive order cast a spotlight on a business deal that drew scant attention when it was announced in <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}