“Boondoggle or Breakthrough?” – Jim Cramer Weighs in on Intel (INTC)’s Billions in Government Support

We recently published a list of Was Jim Cramer Right About These 13 Stocks? In this article, we are going to take a look at where Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) stands against other stocks that Jim Cramer discusses.

During the latest episode of Mad Money, Jim Cramer expressed his frustration over the negative outlook he believes the White House is projecting about the economy. He explained that while he felt a sense of optimism and wanted to get excited about positive developments in the stock market, he held back.

“I wanted to get excited, but you know what I had to do? I had to hold my breath because when this market’s getting ahead of steam going, you know what you can bet on? The president will post something rancorous, dispiriting, and confusing and the market will immediately get put through the meat grinder…

It’s not necessary to do this, nor will they highlight anything good that’s going on here. It makes people feel like everything’s terrible, which isn’t true…

So here’s the bottom line: Every day there is something to celebrate in the business world because the business world is fantastic. We’d be in much better shape if the administration would highlight that. Believe me, the bad doesn’t need your help. It’ll get the word out all by itself.”

Methodology

For this article, we compiled a list of 13 stocks that were discussed by Jim Cramer during the episode of Mad Money on March 21, 2024. We then calculated their performance from March 21, 2024, market close to March 13th, 2025, market close. We have also included the hedge fund sentiment for the stocks, which we sourced from Insider Monkey’s Q4 2024 database of over 900 hedge funds. The stocks are listed in the order that Cramer mentioned them.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

"Boondoggle or Breakthrough?" - Jim Cramer Weighs in on Intel (INTC)’s Billions in Government Support

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 83

Cramer had mixed views on Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) back then. Here’s what he said about the company at the time:

“The U.S. government is writing a check to Intel for $8.5 billion, extending an $11 billion loan to build out semiconductor plants here in America. You’re probably thinking ‘boondoggle,’ but I say that is actually all wrong. […] I know Intel can get the job done—it seems to be a fine choice to me, even as I don’t like the stock.”

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) has been one of the worst performers of the S&P 500 index over the past year. It has dropped by 43.36% in the last 12 months.

The company was mentioned during the latest episode of Mad Money on the 13th of March and here’s what Jim Cramer had to say about it:

“How about this one? The last guys who were doing this job gave Intel a lot of money and boy was I angry. I am still steamed about it, but I see they picked Lip-Bu Tan as CEO and I am hearing the guy is dynamite. Intel’s a national treasure. This could be GREAT NEWS.’”

Overall, INTC ranks 1st on our list of stocks that Jim Cramer discusses. While we acknowledge the potential of INTC as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than INTC but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.