Chipmaker Intel and the CHIPS Act Office are close to finalizing a deal which would award the company a roughly $8 billion grant, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the Biden administration moves to dole out funds before President-elect Trump’s inauguration.

That $8 billion will go towards Intel’s factory-building efforts, said the person. The Commerce Department is expected to finalize the awards in the coming weeks, the person said.

Intel is also in line for a $3 billion contract to manufacture chips for the Department of Defense, a deal announced in September and a rare bright spot in the company’s struggling efforts to grow its fab business. The Commerce Department and Intel declined to comment on the matter.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that the two sides were close to finalizing the grant.

But Intel’s struggles have intensified since the grant was initially announced. The New York Times, citing four people familiar with the matter, reported Sunday that the government had decided to decrease the grant by roughly $500 million due to uncertainties about Intel’s ability to execute on its investment commitment, and because of Intel’s shifting technology roadmap and customer demand.

The U.S. awarded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company a $6.6 billion grant earlier this month, raising investor expectations that cash funding for Intel would come soon. Intel has benefited from CHIPS Act tax breaks but has not yet received cash awards, something which Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has expressed dissatisfaction with.

“We’re frustrated that hasn’t moved faster,” Gelsinger told CNBC in October, referring to the CHIPS Act grants. “They’ve been too bureaucratic in that process. We’re anxious to see those finished.”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson had previously said he might look to repeal the bipartisan CHIPS Act, but he then walked back those comments. The Biden administration and grant awardees have touted the legislation as a job-creating machine.

Intel’s struggles have increased significantly this year. The company posted a nearly $17 billion loss last quarter and has been dialing back CEO Pat Gelsinger’s ambitious plans worldwide.

Intel announced earlier this year it would trim back 15,000 jobs via layoffs and voluntary buyouts. It has made moves to make its foundry business more easily separable from its legacy business, and has been working with advisors on activist defense and a broader strategic review, people familiar with the matter previously said. Intel is also seeking to raise cash via a minority stake in the Altera business, CNBC previously reported, and has been sounding out interested acquirers for weeks.

It may also be staring down a once-unthinkable prospect: a potential takeover bid from an ascending Qualcomm, which has a market cap that now dwarfs Intel’s.

WATCH: We got a lot done this quarter, Intel CEO says

Elon Musk’s business empire is sprawling. It includes electric vehicle maker Tesla, social media company X, artificial intelligence startup xAI, computer interface company Neuralink, tunneling venture Boring Company and aerospace firm SpaceX. 

Some of his ventures already benefit tremendously from federal contracts. SpaceX has received more than $19 billion from contracts with the federal government, according to research from FedScout. Under a second Trump presidency, more lucrative contracts could come its way. SpaceX is on track to take in billions of dollars annually from prime contracts with the federal government for years to come, according to FedScout CEO Geoff Orazem.

Musk, who has frequently blamed the government for stifling innovation, could also push for less regulation of his businesses. Earlier this month, Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy were tapped by Trump to lead a government efficiency group called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

In a recent commentary piece in the Wall Street Journal, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that DOGE will “pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings.” They went on to say that many existing federal regulations were never passed by Congress and should therefore be nullified, which President-elect Trump could accomplish through executive action. Musk and Ramaswamy also championed the large-scale auditing of agencies, calling out the Pentagon for failing its seventh consecutive audit. 

“The number one way Elon Musk and his companies would benefit from a Trump administration is through deregulation and defanging, you know, giving fewer resources to federal agencies tasked with oversight of him and his businesses,” says CNBC technology reporter Lora Kolodny.

To learn how else Elon Musk and his companies may benefit from having the ear of the president-elect watch the video.

X’s new terms of service, which took effect Nov. 15, are driving some users off Elon Musk’s microblogging platform. 

The new terms include expansive permissions requiring users to allow the company to use their data to train X’s artificial intelligence models while also making users liable for as much as $15,000 in damages if they use the platform too much. 

The terms are prompting some longtime users of the service, both celebrities and everyday people, to post that they are taking their content to other platforms. 

“With the recent and upcoming changes to the terms of service — and the return of volatile figures — I find myself at a crossroads, facing a direction I can no longer fully support,” actress Gabrielle Union posted on X the same day the new terms took effect, while announcing she would be leaving the platform.

“I’m going to start winding down my Twitter account,” a user with the handle @mplsFietser said in a post. “The changes to the terms of service are the final nail in the coffin for me.”

It’s unclear just how many users have left X due specifically to the company’s new terms of service, but since the start of November, many social media users have flocked to Bluesky, a microblogging startup whose origins stem from Twitter, the former name for X. Some users with new Bluesky accounts have posted that they moved to the service due to Musk and his support for President-elect Donald Trump.

Bluesky’s U.S. mobile app downloads have skyrocketed 651% since the start of November, according to estimates from Sensor Tower. In the same period, X and Meta’s Threads are up 20% and 42%, respectively. 

X and Threads have much larger monthly user bases. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates X had 318 million monthly users as of October. That same month, Meta said Threads had nearly 275 million monthly users. Bluesky told CNBC on Thursday it had reached 21 million total users this week.

Here are some of the noteworthy changes in X’s new service terms and how they compare with those of rivals Bluesky and Threads.

Additionally, any “user interactions, inputs and results” shared with Grok can be used for what it calls “training and fine-tuning purposes,” according to the Grok section of the X app and website. This specific function, though, can be turned off manually. 

X’s terms do not specify whether users’ private messages can be used to train its AI models, and the company did not respond to a request for comment.

“You should only provide Content that you are comfortable sharing with others,” read a portion of X’s terms of service agreement.

Though X’s new terms may be expansive, Meta’s policies aren’t that different. 

The maker of Threads uses “information shared on Meta’s Products and services” to get its training data, according to the company’s Privacy Center. This includes “posts or photos and their captions.” There is also no direct way for users outside of the European Union to opt out of Meta’s AI training. Meta keeps training data “for as long as we need it on a case-by-case basis to ensure an AI model is operating appropriately, safely and efficiently,” according to its Privacy Center. 

Under Meta’s policy, private messages with friends or family aren’t used to train AI unless one of the users in a chat chooses to share it with the models, which can include Meta AI and AI Studio.

Bluesky, which has seen a user growth surge since Election Day, doesn’t do any generative AI training. 

“We do not use any of your content to train generative AI, and have no intention of doing so,” Bluesky said in a post on its platform Friday, confirming the same to CNBC as well.

WATCH: Bluesky CEO: Our platform is ‘radically different’ from anything else in social media