Investing.com -- U.S. President Donald Trump said he should have requested a larger ownership stake in Intel when the government took a 9.9% holding in the chipmaker last year.

Trump told Fortune in an interview published Monday that he asked Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan for "10% ownership for free" of the company. When Tan agreed, Trump said he thought he "should have asked for more."

In August, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the country had taken a stake in Intel. Government grants from the CHIPS Act of $5.7 billion were converted to equity along with $3.2 billion from separate government awards.

Intel's stock has increased by more than 300% since the government took its stake.

Trump told Fortune that Intel would be "the biggest company in the world right now" if he had been in office to protect it with tariffs when companies started importing chips from China. He said Intel would have captured that business and "there would be no Taiwan," referring to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. TSMC has a market cap of $1.84 trillion, compared with Intel's $547 billion.

Earlier this month, Apple and Intel reportedly reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to make some chips for Apple devices. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in April he plans to rely on Intel's chips for his $119 billion Terafab project.

April was Intel's best month in the chipmaker's 55 years on the Nasdaq, with the stock more than doubling.