Intel keeps losing ground with Apple because Apple does not trust it, and that is good news for TSMC and bad for Intel's plan to build a contract chip business.

• Apple dropped Intel chips in 2020 and handed its chip making to TSMC, and trust — not technology — was the reason.
• Trump said in June that Apple agreed to make some chips with Intel in the US, but that is not a real return of Apple's business.
• Intel told equipment suppliers Apple was already a customer so it should get new machines first, which broke Apple's strict secrecy rules and damaged trust further.
• New Intel boss Lip-Bu Tan stopped writing blank checks, slowing the Ohio plant and cancelling factories in Germany and Poland, so Intel now waits for orders before adding capacity.
• That creates a chicken-and-egg trap: big customers will not order until Intel proves it can deliver, and Intel will not build until customers order.

Outlook: Intel will keep chasing customers like Google, Tesla and Nvidia under White House pressure to build in America, while Apple's chip work stays with TSMC.