Trump regrets once selling IBM's stock. Now he's cheering its quantum future and dealing its shares.

By Hannah Pedone and Victor Reklaitis

IBM looks like a focal point as the U.S. further backs domestic quantum-computing initiatives

Shares of IBM rose 5% on Tuesday after President Donald Trump signed executive orders on quantum computing.

President Donald Trump sold IBM's stock before taking office, which was "not a good move," he acknowledged on Monday.

Lately, Trump has become a fan of IBM (IBM) once more, praising not just the company but also CEO Arvind Krishna. Trump called Krishna a "great man" as he announced two executive orders Monday meant to help U.S. quantum-computing players enhance their capabilities. The IBM CEO was standing behind him at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office for that moment.

Trump's remark about selling IBM may have been a reference to his December 2016 announcement related to divesting from all individual stocks before getting sworn in as president for the first time.

In his current term, Trump actually has been dealing in IBM shares, while making thousands of other transactions. His financial disclosure last month revealed buys and sells of various IBM positions in February and March, with the stakes worth between $15,000 and $50,000 in some cases, or $1,000 to $15,000 in other cases. Disclosure forms typically allow government officials to list a range rather than an exact amount, making it unclear what Trump's net position in IBM could be.

Investors have taken a liking to stocks praised by Trump; just look at Intel (INTC), whose shares are up 270% so far this year. It now seems like IBM could be a lynchpin of the president's quantum masterplan, and the company's stock gained 5% on Tuesday.

One of the new executive orders called for the development of a quantum computer to "initiate the era of quantum-enabled scientific discovery." Trump called on the directors and secretaries of the Commerce Department, Energy Department, National Science Foundation and NASA to spearhead a five-year plan for "advancing quantum sensing and networking."

The second order called to secure the nation against advanced cryptographic attacks.

"Ongoing cyber activity against our nation also presents the risk of adversaries collecting United States information now, and decrypting it later once large-scale quantum computers are operational," the order said.

The measures come after an announcement from the Commerce Department last month saying that it would take $2 billion in grants and equity stakes in quantum-computing companies, including IBM.

As part of the deal, the administration announced it will support the company with a $1 billion award for the development of Anderon, a pure-play quantum foundry at IBM.

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Jay Gambetta, the director of research at IBM, commented positively on the executive orders in a Monday post on LinkedIn.

"These actions connect policy to execution, aligning standards, coordination and clear milestones across the quantum stack to drive progress," he wrote.

IBM's goal is to build a fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2030. Jerry Chow, chief technology officer of IBM Quantum-Centric Supercomputing, said at a press conference earlier this month that the progress the quantum industry has made in the past two decades is "is just amazing."

"Now [we] have QPUs as a core element of this future of computing landscape," he said - referring to quantum processing units, which are the hardware that helps quantum-computing systems function. "We see this as this equal partner, right with our CPUs and GPUs."

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told MarketWatch that the comments by Trump about IBM and Arvind, combined with the administration's focus on quantum, has been putting the company in a positive spotlight.

"This is a sleeping tech giant, in our view," Ives said.

Also helping spur positive momentum for IBM on Tuesday was an upgrade from J.P. Morgan analyst Brian Essex, who turned bullish in raising his rating on the stock to overweight from neutral.

"In addition to fundamental software acceleration, we see room for multiple expansion should IBM gain incremental traction as a substantial AI infrastructure beneficiary or should we see a favorable revision to IBM's timeline for delivering a fault-tolerant quantum computer," he wrote.

-Hannah Pedone -Victor Reklaitis

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06-23-26 1711ET