Is it the role of a for-profit public company to "support" another for-profit public company?
Free market, supply and demand, live by the sword die by the sword and all that.
If Intel made decisions that lead to it's downfall, surely that is on them.
It is (or it can be) if you want to avoid antitrust lawsuits. Same reason Microsoft bailed out Apple in the 90s.
Not to mention that Apple had atleast a salvageable IP if done well. Nobody else could compete with them on shipping MacOS machines. Intel has no such moat.
Apple used to dual-source their chips from Samsung/TSMC before they went all in with TSMC, but it's clear they're now vulnerable to geopolitical tensions.
Kind of. If Intel keep making shit, it doesn't help anyone if they succeed doing it. They are nothing making products that are a viable alternative to TSMC, so it makes no difference if they vanish.