> Apple is one of the very few companies at their size that seems to have the political environment to make, and more importantly succeed, at decade investments.

Definitely! But I'd recon they would want to bootstrap that part of their supply chain as soon as possible? Say China does invade Taiwan, suddenly their main supplier is gone and the Intel capacity mostly goes to military and other high margin segments. If they instead own Intel they not only control the narrative but also capitalize on the increase in Intel's value.