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(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden will provide an update — not announce new policies — on the Ukraine crisis this afternoon, his press secretary said. It comes after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Western allies reacted cautiously to a Russian statement that it was beginning to pull back troops from the Ukrainian border.

Putin told reporters on Tuesday that the talks with Scholz were businesslike and that U.S. and NATO offers on limits to missile deployments and confidence-building measures could be the basis for further discussions.

The meeting came after U.S. warnings of a possible Russian attack on Ukraine reached their most urgent level yet, with Washington saying an invasion could happen imminently. Officials in Moscow have repeatedly denied an incursion is planned.

Key Developments

• Sarcasm in Ukraine Roils Markets Swinging Between War, Peace
• Senators Weigh Non-Binding Resolution as Russia Sanctions Stall
• Where Military Forces Are Assembling Around Russia and Ukraine
• What Conflict in Ukraine Would Mean for Oil, Gas and Food

All times CET

Key Senate Republican Plans Sanctions Bill (9:00 p.m.)

Senator Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, has drafted his own Russia sanctions bill, the latest sign that bipartisan talks remain at an impasse.

Risch’s bill is aimed at halting construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and would mandate sanctions on the project should Russia invade Ukraine. Prior to any invasion, the bill would suspend sanctions for as long as the German government continues to suspend the certification process for the conduit. It would also provide $500 million in Foreign Military Financing for Ukraine, including $250 million in emergency funding, with $100 million of that for lethal assistance.

Risch and Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez have been trying to reach consensus on a sanctions package, but the Senate plans to leave Washington for a week-long recess at the end of this week, giving lawmakers just a few days to strike a deal that has eluded them for weeks. 

Russia Moves Don’t Suggest Force Posture Change, RUSI Says (8:40 p.m.)

Judging by units the Russian defense ministry has shown as withdrawing, it’s doubtful a meaningful de-escalation has begun, according to Samuel Cranny-Evans, a military analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London. The units were from two motor rifle brigades that were stationed in the southern part of Crimea, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.

“It does not really change Russian force posture at all,” Cranny-Evans said, because they were positioned too far from the provisional border. At the same time, he noted that open source videos purport to show tanks from the 1st Guards Tank Army driving at night close to the Ukrainian border, which would send a very different signal.

Not only is driving tanks at night risky and certain to tear up roads, so generally not done lightly, but if open source identifications are correct the 1st Guards are a spearhead division, according to Cranny-Evans. “If that kind of unit were withdrawn from that kind of location, it would be a much more definitive indication of de-escalation.”

West Watches Where Russian Troops and Equipment Might Move (7:38 p.m.)

As Western diplomats seek to parse Russia’s announcement of a partial withdrawal of some of the estimated 130,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders, it’s what-gets-moved-where that will indicate the Kremlin’s intentions.

To be meaningful, any withdrawal must be substantial and include heavy land equipment such as tanks, according to Henry Boyd, a research fellow for defense and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The troops would need to return to home barracks across Russia, rather than the closer makeshift bases they were in recently until moving up near the border, Boyd said.

“There has to be equipment, it is too quick and easy to move personnel backward and forwards,” said Boyd. “Otherwise, you are just shifting from the potential for invasion within a couple of days to within a week.” Any semi-withdrawal could also be part of a deception operation: “yes, it could be genuine, or yes it could be false and in essence the two things wouldn’t look too different at this point in time.”

Ukraine Defense Ministry, Banks See Websites Hit (6:46 p.m.)

Ukraine’s defense ministry and two state-run Ukrainian lenders, Privatbank and Oschadbank, said they suffered distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks which interrupted access to some of their services. 

The ministry’s website still appears to be down. The banks said the attacks on their systems lasted several hours but that most functions have since been restored.

Over 70 government websites came under massive cyberattacks on Jan. 14. Ukrainian investigators said last month that all evidence pointed to Russia being behind them, charges Moscow rejected. 

Biden to Speak on Russia-Ukraine Crisis (6:28 p.m.)

Biden will discuss the Russia-Ukraine situation in public remarks at the White House at 3:30 p.m. 

The president “will reiterate that the United States remains open to high-level diplomacy in close coordination with our allies, building on the multiple diplomatic off-ramps we and our allies and partners have offered Russia in recent months. The United States continues to believe diplomacy and de-escalation are the best path forward, but is prepared for every scenario,” the White House said in a statement. 

Oil Plummets Amid Signs of Tensions Easing (4:40 p.m.)

Oil dropped from its highest since 2014 after Russia said some troops are starting to return to their permanent bases after completing drills, even as Western officials expressed reservations over the claims. 

Futures in New York fell close to $5 a barrel after touching $95 on Monday. Crude has swung wildly this week amid a flurry of reports about the tensions over Ukraine.

Putin Says Russia Committed to Minsk Accords (3:56 p.m.)

Putin on Tuesday called for efforts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas to continue on the basis of the Minsk accords. Putin, speaking to reporters in Moscow following talks with Scholz, urged France and Germany to pressure Kyiv to implement the stalled 2015 peace agreement.

The Russian leader was responding to a question on a vote by Russian lawmakers asking him to immediately recognize separatist Kremlin-backed regions in Ukraine. Putin didn’t specify how he’d respond to the request. 

Scholz warned that such a move would risk scuppering the Minsk peace process, adding that failure of those discussions would be a catastrophe and that all parties needed to make contributions. 

Western Officials Seek to Clarify Russian Claims (3:07 p.m.)

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock joined a chorus of Western voices expressing skepticism over Moscow’s statement that it was beginning to pull back troops from the Ukrainian border. “Every step of de-escalation would be reason for hope. But so far there are only words, which now have to be followed by actions,” she said on Tuesday.

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told reporters that they would need to verify Russia’s claims, adding that Moscow made similar statements in December that couldn’t be supported by the facts.

Russia has rotated troops before and would need to demonstrate a significant reduction for a proper rollback, according to a NATO diplomat familiar with the alliance’s thinking. A mass movement of troops would also take time, the diplomat cautioned, so the situation would need to be monitored for a while to ensure it’s not a tactical ploy.

Ukraine’s Top Diplomat Wants to See ‘Real Withdrawal’ (2:40 p.m.)

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he would need to see action before believing Moscow’s statement that it was beginning to pull troops back from Ukraine’s border. Kuleba wrote on Twitter that he would believe a de-escalation was in progress if “a real withdrawal follows these statements.” 

U.K.’s Johnson Sees ‘Mixed Signals’ in Russian Position (2:26 p.m.) 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Russia’s declaration that it was moving troops away from the Ukrainian border was a sign of a “diplomatic opening,” but added that U.K. intelligence “is still not encouraging.” 

“You’ve got more battalion tactical groups being brought closer to the border,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday after being briefed by intelligence officials. “So, mixed signals, I think, at the moment.”

Johnson added that the U.K. will take steps to stop Russian companies from raising capital on London financial markets as part of a broad range of sanctions if Russia invades.

Euro Area at Risk From Gas-Supply Shock, ECB Finds (1:18 p.m.)

A potential reduction of gas supplies to the euro area would diminish economic activity in the region and worsen the hit from already-high energy prices, European Central Bank researchers said. 

Slovakia, Austria and Portugal would take the biggest hit, while the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium would be relatively immune, the researchers said. 

NATO Says No Sign Yet of Russian Pullback (1:08 p.m.)

NATO has yet to see any signs of a reduced Russian presence on its border with Ukraine, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels, although he said Moscow’s announcement offered “reason for cautious optimism.” 

“So far we haven’t seen any sign of de-escalation on the ground,” he said. “Everything is in place for a new attack. Russia still has time to step back from the brink.”

 

Estonian Spies See Long-Term Risk From Russia (1:00 p.m.)

NATO and its allies must be prepared for “sustained military pressure” from Russia and a continued military presence in Belarus that will pose a threat to Baltic nations, Estonia’s intelligence agency said in its annual report.

“Russia may continue to maintain a rotating force group on Belarusian territory,” the report said. “This would harm the wider security situation in the Baltic Sea region and for NATO, reducing the preparation time for an attack against the Baltic states.”

Russia’s military would only be a “political decision” away from a full-scale attack on Ukraine from the second half of February, according to the report. But even if current tensions de-escalate, the military pressure wielded by the Kremlin has become an “integral part of the foreign policy of Putin’s Russia” in recent years.

Russia’s Lavrov Says Security Deal Possible With U.S., NATO (12:10 p.m.)

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that Russia is confident that diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving a tense stand-off with the U.S. and Europe will succeed.

Lavrov said his country will pursue talks on its demands for sweeping security guarantees including a halt to the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that the U.S. and its allies have rejected. At the same time, Russia is ready to start talks at an expert level on proposals made by the U.S. on missile restrictions and confidence-building measures, he said, adding that Moscow would publish its response to the U.S. soon.

“Thanks to efforts on all these fronts, overall we can work out a fairly good package solution,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.

Duma Asks Putin to Recognize Ukraine Separatists (11:32 a.m.)

The Russian State Duma voted Tuesday to appeal to Putin to immediately grant formal recognition to separatist entities in east Ukraine. The Kremlin so far hasn’t publicly stated its position on the proposal. 

The U.S. has warned allies that Russia could try to create a pretext to move against Ukraine by causing a provocation in the eastern Donbas region, where Ukraine’s military has been fighting for years against separatists backed by Moscow, officials familiar with the matter said. 

Russia Shows Video of Troops Preparing to Pull Back (11:11 a.m.)

Units of the Western and Southern military districts are already loading equipment onto road and rail transport after completing their drills and will begin returning to their permanent bases Tuesday, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a video posted on its website.

It remains unclear how many troops may be pulled back and how significant the process might become.

Some of the troops on exercise in Belarus have moved closer to the border than expected, according to Western intelligence officials. They added their intelligence showed there were currently 100 Russian battalion tactical groups massed near Ukraine’s borders and 14 more in transit. The officials did not provide the evidence behind their assessments.

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(Bloomberg) — The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has adopted regulations to foster more competition for broadband service to the roughly one-third of Americans living in apartment buildings, who often have only one choice for a provider.

The rules prohibit broadband providers from entering into certain revenue-sharing agreements with a building owner that keeps competitive providers out of buildings, the FCC said in a news release. The rules, adopted on a 4-0 vote, also require providers to tell tenants if their building has an exclusive marketing arrangement with a provider, the agency said.

“The rules we adopt today will crack down on practices that prevent competition and effectively block a consumer’s ability to get lower prices or higher quality services,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in the news release.

Cable providers have argued that curbing the practices cited by the FCC may inhibit investment and deployment in buildings.

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(Bloomberg) — Malaysia’s AirAsia is near agreement for Vertical Aerospace Ltd. flying taxis, according to people familiar with the matter, adding to a raft of carriers moving into the potential market to offer short, battery-powered flights.

A deal between the airline’s owner and aircraft-leasing firm Avolon Holdings could be announced as soon as Wednesday at the Singapore Air Show, said the people, who asked not to be named because discussions were confidential. Avolon, an investor in Vertical, has ordered 500 of the U.K. startup’s VX4 aircraft, conditioned on milestones including certification. 

Representatives for Dublin-based Avolon and Vertical, based in Bristol, England, declined to comment. AirAsia owner Capital A Bhd. didn’t respond to requests for comment outside of normal business hours. 

The commitment is likely to cover more than 50 VX4 electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, two of the people said. The eVTOLs, which are in development, carry four passengers and a pilot for a target range of more than 100 miles, enough for short hops across or between cities.  

Avolon Chief Executive Officer Domhnal Slattery, who was recently appointed chairman of Vertical, said Monday in Singapore that demand for eVTOLs is “exceptionally high.” He signaled that Avolon plans to make a “very significant announcement” on Wednesday with a “major Southeast Asian player” that could help the leasing company sell out the 500 aircraft it ordered last year.

Avolon has signed commitments for as many as 350 Vertical aircraft, including with Brazil’s largest airline Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes and Japan Airlines Co. 

Vertical’s other customers and partners include American Airlines Group Inc., Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. and Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corp. 

Startups around the globe are racing to refine the technology behind the eVTOLs, which promise to jumpstart a generation of cleaner-emission aircraft and provide carriers with a new business line that can offer helicopter-like services at lower cost. 

On Tuesday, rival flying-taxi startup Joby Aviation Inc. said it will work with ANA Holdings Inc. to bring aerial ridesharing to Japan. 

No, Really, Flying Taxis Are Getting Closer to Giving You Rides

(Updates with previous Avolon commitments in sixth paragraph. An earlier version corrected spelling of company name in headline.)

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(Bloomberg) — Digital Africa, a French government-backed organization assisting African tech startups, will move to a for-profit model and provide 70 million euros ($79 million) for seed and Series A funding by 2025. 

Backed with 130 million euros from Proparco, a unit of the Agence Francaise de Developpement, Digital Africa aims to fund 200 African startups with seed funding of between 20,000 euros and 200,000 euros each, Stephan Eloise-Gras, the initiative’s executive director, said on an online press conference.

“To bring these changes to life, Digital Africa, is looking to move away from its initial nonprofit model, with the ambition to get closer to the African and global private sector by focusing on early stage startups,” it said in its White Paper 2022, which was released on Tuesday.

The initiative, launched by French President Emmanuel Macron in 2018, plans to shift its focus beyond the three key nodes of South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, which together account for almost four fifths of the money raised by African startups. It will also look to provide funding to hubs in countries ranging from Ivory Coast to Tunisia, according to the White Paper. 

A record $5 billion in startup capital was raised in Africa last year.

The company will from March 1 start seeking candidates from Africa’s startup hubs to sit on a strategic committee, it said in a separate statement.bbbb

Digital Africa set up the 5 million euro Bridge Fund with Proparco in 2020 and has so far disbursed seed funding of between 175,000 euros to 600,000 euros to 10 companies.

(Updates with strategic committee in second last paragraph)

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(Bloomberg) — A combined audience of 112.3 million people watched the Super Bowl on various outlets, a 16% jump from last year’s diminished viewership.

Some 99.2 million people viewed the game on NBC, another 1.9 million on its Spanish-language sibling Telemundo, and 11.2 million on streaming services such as Peacock, the network said in an email, making it the most-watched Super Bowl in five years.

The strong turnout was another sign the National Football League is gaining viewers despite a shrinking television landscape. Ratings for the regular season were up 10%. The league likely benefited from factors such as a return of fans to stadiums, increased interest in sports betting and some really close games.

Sunday’s matchup featured the Los Angeles Rams defeating the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 after Matthew Stafford threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Cooper Kupp with less than 2 minutes remaining.

CBS, a unit of ViacomCBS Inc., said last year that it drew an audience of 96.4 million TV and digital viewers for the big game. That matchup, featuring the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a lopsided 31-9 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, was the smallest audience for the Super Bowl in more than a decade.

NBC, which is owned by Comcast Corp., sold 30-second Super Bowl commercials this year for as much as $7 million, a record. The network said it had 81 national spots. Advertisers for the game included cryptocurrency exchanges, carmakers and streaming services.

NBC used the big Super Bowl audience to boost Winter Olympics coverage, which is seeing a steep decline in TV viewership. NBC aired Olympic events right after the Super Bowl, a departure from the past when broadcasters have typically used that time slot to promote a TV show. 

NBC said its Beijing Olympics broadcast after the Super Bowl drew 24 million viewers, marking its largest Olympics primetime audience since the opening day of the 2018 winter games.

(Updates with Olympics numbers in last paragraph.)

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(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk, it seems, is finally becoming a philanthropist on the scale of his billionaire peers. 

The electric car and space mogul gifted $5.7 billion worth of Tesla Inc. stock to charity in the span of 10 days in November — many times more than he’s given away through his eponymous foundation in the two decades since it was founded. Where that donation is going is a mystery, but it’s just one more signal that the world’s richest person is taking philanthropy more seriously. 

The decision by Musk, 50, to donate more than 5 million shares in the electric-car maker was disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday night, and comes on the heels of some of his biggest-ever philanthropic commitments — though nothing has come close to the scale of billions of dollars. It would also help reduce what he called the biggest tax bill in U.S. history.

The Musk Foundation in the past couple of years has made eight-figure grants to the city and local school system near his South Texas spaceport, a $100 million ready-made competition to fight climate change and millions of dollars to a pair of Covid-19 researchers. 

Almost all of those recipients have been primarily working with Igor Kurganov, a professional poker player-turned-philanthropist, who Musk has recently enlisted to keep in contact with grantees and consider their proposals. 

Effective Altruism

Kurganov, who has won more than $18 million during his poker career, is active in the world of so-called effective altruism, a philanthropic and philosophical movement that tries to have the greatest impact by carefully spending money to solve problems. Kurganov is the co-founder of Raising for Effective Giving, an organization created by a group of poker players that recommends “highly cost-effective charities.” He’s also an adviser to the Forethought Foundation, a project by the Centre for Effective Altruism. 

Calls and emails to Kurganov haven’t been returned. Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk’s family office, and Aaron Beckman, Tesla’s senior manager of stock administration, didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

If Musk’s foundation is turning to effective altruism, it hasn’t showed yet, said Alixandra Barasch, an associate professor of marketing at New York University who has done research on the movement. 

Musk doesn’t regularly publicize his gifts and tax documents that provide such disclosures have a years-long delay. What Musk has shared recently includes $10 million to Brownsville, Texas, near where SpaceX is located, to revitalize its downtown. So far, that money has gone to a grants program for local property owners, lighting projects and murals.

Scale Up

Saving lives is the primary focus of effective altruism, and “murals don’t do that much good in terms of the way it’s measured and defined in the movement,” Barasch said. 

Other gifts from Musk, like the $20 million for Cameron County schools, the $100 million commitment for the XPrize Carbon Removal competition and $5 million for Khan Academy, similarly don’t have the focus that effective altruism typically does, Barasch said. But scale is also a factor, she said, and if Musk’s foundation is influenced by the philosophy, his giving could increase significantly. 

“Looking at those amounts I’m like, ‘Holy moly, there’s millions of dollars, it’s a lot of money,’” Barasch said. But “it’s nothing compared to what he’s worth.” 

Musk has a $227 billion personal fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The donation of $5.7 billion of Tesla stock could be a sign that he’s picking up the pace of his giving — but it also doesn’t mean he’s actually sent much to charity yet. 

The gift likely went to Musk’s foundation, said Brian Mittendorf, an Ohio State University professor who studies nonprofits. Given Musk’s previous use of donor-advised funds, or DAFs, the public might never know where much of the money is going unless he chooses to share it on Twitter or the Musk Foundation’s website, he said.

‘Guessing Game’

“We shouldn’t have to play this guessing game,” said Benjamin Soskis, senior research associate at the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute. “It’s a matter of public interest where the money is going because the scale is so large.”

Musk’s November gifting spree came around the time he was sparring with politicians on Twitter about his taxes. A large gift to charity would help reduce what he owed to the government. Days before he completed a series of stock sales worth more than $16 billion — much of which was to cover the exercise of almost 23 million options — Tesla’s chief executive tweeted he would pay more than $11 billion in taxes for the year. 

In the weeks leading up to the gift, Musk also suggested he’d sell stock if the United Nations proved $6 billion would help solve world hunger, after the head of the organization’s World Food Programme called for billionaires like Musk to “step up.” 

Musk’s penchant to be provocative and his large gift announcements have made it hard for the public to figure out what his intentions are. What the hiring of Kurganov and the recent $5.7 billion gift actually mean for Musk’s philanthropic future is a mystery, Soskis said. 

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Soskis said of where Musk’s gift might end up. “If you look at what he’s done, there’s no discernible pattern.”

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(Bloomberg) — New Jersey bettors wagered a record $143.7 million on the Super Bowl, up 22% from the prior year even with bets being taken in neighboring New York for the first time.

Sports betting has exploded across the U.S. since the Supreme Court allowed states outside of Nevada to offer it in 2018. Along with the ease of betting on a phone, operators such as FanDuel and DraftKings Inc. have greatly expanded their revenue by offering many types of bets to entice gamblers.

New York began allowing mobile sports wagering in January and is expected to disclose its numbers on Friday. In Nevada, which held a virtual monopoly on sports betting for decades, wagers on the Super Bowl rose 32% to a record $179.8 million this year, according to the state’s Gaming Control Board.

“It’s pointing to a very positive picture,” David Forman, senior director of research for the American Gaming Association, said at a press conference Tuesday. “New York is now online, and there were some concerns about how that would impact the New Jersey market, but it’s been very strong growth in at least those two pretty mature markets.”

Some 30 states now offer sports betting. One exception to the widespread industry growth is Mississippi. Super Bowl wagers there fell 21% to $6.4 million this year. Neighboring Louisiana now offers sports betting, which likely ate into Mississippi’s wagers.

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(Bloomberg) — Intel Corp. agreed to acquire Tower Semiconductor Ltd. for about $5.4 billion, part of Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger’s push into the outsourced chip-manufacturing business. 

Intel will pay $53 per share in cash for Tower, according to a statement Tuesday. The offer represents a 60% premium to Tower’s closing share price in U.S. trading on Monday. The companies’ boards have approved the transaction, which they expect will close in about 12 months. 

Shares of Tower rose 42% in New York on Tuesday while Intel gained 1.4%.

Gelsinger, who took the CEO job a year ago, is betting he can compete with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in the chip-foundry market — the contract manufacturing of semiconductors for other companies. His comeback plan for Intel involves modernizing its factories and building new ones aimed at restoring its leadership in chip technology. 

With Tower, Intel is acquiring customers and expertise. The chip-foundry industry requires experience in handling different types of chips and designs. Intel has previously had little success in that area because of a lack of commitment to it, Gelsinger has said. Intel’s factories have historically produced only its own designs. 

Tower makes power management chips, image sensors and a variety of other semiconductors. Its customers include Analog Devices Inc. and Broadcom Inc., according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 

What the move doesn’t provide is scale. Tower had annual sales of about $1.3 billion last year, a fraction of TSMC’s $56 billion.

Analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets called the deal “moderately positive” for Intel. Since Taiwan Semiconductor is a specialty foundry, it’s unclear whether the acquisition will help Intel expand to the same volumes and compete with Samsung and TSMC on mainstream process technologies.

TSMC’s sales are expected to grow about 27% in 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Hsinchu-based company, which pioneered the market, accounts for more than 50% of industry revenue and makes chips for many of Intel’s key rivals, a list that includes Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Nvidia Corp. 

Tower, which is based in northern Israel, was formed from the combination of other companies’ plants, starting in the 1990s. It also owns a factory in Texas. It’s similar to, but much smaller than, GlobalFoundries Inc., a U.S.-based chip manufacturer that Intel considered making a bid for last year. A deal never materialized and GlobalFoundries’ owner, Mubadala Investment Co., proceeded with an initial public offering of the company last October. 

On a conference call with analysts to discuss the deal, Gelsinger said Tower complemented Intel’s military contracts. Intel also plans to build on Tower’s existing partnership with STMicroelectronics NV, Gelsinger said. 

The Tower deal is just part of Gelsinger’s plan to get Intel back on track. He’s also building a factory in Ohio that could cost $20 billion and new facilities in Europe. The spending spree is weighing on Intel’s profit margins and put investors on edge. 

The company’s earnings missed analysts’ projections last quarter, and it gave a disappointing outlook. But Intel has said that profit margins could be back to their historically high levels within five years.

Gelsinger also is seeking government funding to rebuild manufacturing in the U.S. and Europe, arguing that too much of the industry’s production has shifted to Asia.

“This is a big investment cycle for us as a company,” he said in an interview following the earnings report last month. “It is the right one for Intel — it is a critical one for our industry and for our nation.”

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC served as financial adviser to Intel. JPMorgan Chase & Co served as financial adviser to Tower.

(Updates with premium value in second paragraph.)

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