U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday publicly called for the resignation of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, claiming without evidence that the executive is compromised by conflicts of interest tied to China.
“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign immediately. There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The post, which did not include supporting details, came a day after Republican Senator Tom Cotton sent a letter to Intel’s board of directors questioning Tan’s alleged links to China. Cotton cited Tan’s prior leadership at Cadence Design Systems, a U.S. firm that once counted a Chinese military university among its customers, and raised concerns about Tan’s investments in the country.
Tan took over as Intel’s CEO in March and has since launched a sweeping restructuring. He has cut thousands of jobs, canceled planned factories, and begun divesting non-core subsidiaries as part of efforts to sharpen Intel’s engineering focus and regain lost ground in the AI chip market, where rivals such as Nvidia and AMD have surged ahead.
The former Cadence executive is facing scrutiny at a time when Intel remains a key beneficiary of the Biden administration’s $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act. The company has been promised nearly $8 billion in subsidies to support manufacturing and packaging projects across four U.S. states: Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio, and Oregon.
Intel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
