But doing so, would surely risk intels reputation and future contracts with the government. The government could also impose other restriction or penalties on intel for non compliance.
But like you say, if intel does come up short, likely nothing will happen (unless some form of negligence is discovered)
This is socialized business loss. Intel was (is?) on a downward spiral. An infusion of $20B just saves their hide until they can develop something valuable to the AI gold rush.
Frankly, all the republicans bitching about socialism need to take a harder look at shit like this and stop worrying about welfare queens or whatever the anti woke outrage of the day is.