Billions of dollars in US CHIPS Act grants are imperiled, possibly dead, with expected departures of hundreds of NIST workers who have administered the Act and helped dozens of companies sign commitments to receive the grants, according to reports.
Various news outlets and analysts have spoken to workers expected to get notices of firing this week because they are considered probationary workers. Under the heading of probationary are workers with less than two years of service, including those receiving promotions in the past two years. Elon Musk as head of the the Department of Government Efficiency has used this approach to lay off thousands of workers in other government agencies such as USAID.
Semiconductor Advisors analyst Robert Maire noted on Sunday, “Trump will kill CHIPS Act by gutting NIST employees,” and other reports have surfaced in Axios and Bloomberg. Bloomberg reported Feb. 19 with unnamed sources that the Trump administration was planning mass firings at NIST. If no one is left to administer the CHIPS Act, it is dead by default because no workers will be left to certify companies have met their obligations for how they use the CHIPS Act fund, Semiconductor Advisors said in a note.
Firings at NIST could begin this week, according to sources.
Officials at NIST, Commerce and the White House could not be reached to comment. Reports have indicated the number of positions cut at NIST could be 500 people.
President Trump called the CHIPS Act “so bad” in the weeks before the November election. Newly-installed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Senate committee members that the CHIPS Act was a groundwork for accelerating chip production but would not state when asked that he supports signed commitments without reviewing them. Commerce oversees NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), which became the primary administrative body overseeing the Act.
The Act was signed into law in 2022 by former President Biden, giving $52 billion in grants and added loans for shoring up semiconductor production in the US after shortages of chips during the Covid pandemic led to problems finishing assembly of cars and many other products.
Of that total, $39 billion had been allocated for actual creation of more fabrication facilities, with $11 billion for various levels of research. In recent weeks, more than $36 billion of the $39 billion had been awarded to various companies. The $52 billion also included $2 billion for a US Defense Department priority contract with Intel to provision chips needed for missiles and other government programs.