1) Qualcomm moves holding company to Singapore to avoid onshore taxes
2) Profit grows pile of cash to >$30B
3) JANA wants to see that cash leveraged for a quick profit and break up Qualcomm
4) Qualcomm execs decide holding so much cash puts them at risk of being displaced....they learn this from the JANA fiasco. Since they don't want to pay 35% tax on the money trapped overseas they attempt to buy NXP.
3) Hock Tan starts drooling over cash and attempts a hostile takeover.
4) New administration actually does something good (among many id--tic things) and helps Congress pass a bill granting a tax holiday on foreign profit. This was overdue and talked about by the Obama admin, but never got done. Since that money was never coming back, this isn't even controversial and results in little lost tax revenue. It does create an incentive for companies to bring money back and spend it here. Too late for Qualcomm though.
5) At this point the execs realize they don't really want NXP, but would rather spend the $30B placating shareholders...it's safest for them to keep their jobs this way, and at $30M per year you have to ask what you would do...
6) So here we are, the execs are safe and the long term future of the Q is pretty shaky.