U.S. President Donald Trump demanded Thursday that the brand new boss of U.S. chip maker Intel resign “immediately,” after a Republican Senator raised nationwide safety considerations over his hyperlinks to companies in China.
“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem,” Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, a day after Senator Tom Cotton mentioned he had written to Intel questioning ties between CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Chinese companies.
Mr. Tan “reportedly controls dozens of Chinese companies and has a stake in hundreds of Chinese advanced-manufacturing and chip firms. At least eight of these companies reportedly have ties to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army,” Mr. Cotton wrote in his letter, a replica of which he posted on his web site.
Mr. Cotton additionally famous Mr. Tan’s position because the earlier head of Cadence Design Systems, which he mentioned not too long ago “pleaded guilty to illegally selling its products to a Chinese military university and transferring its technology to an associated Chinese semiconductor company without obtaining licenses.”
Mr. Tan was head of the corporate at the moment, Cotton mentioned.
The Malaysia-born tech trade veteran took the helm at struggling Intel in March, asserting layoffs as White House tariffs and export restrictions muddied the market.
He has mentioned it “won’t be easy” to beat challenges confronted by the corporate.
Intel is one of Silicon Valley’s most iconic corporations, however its fortunes have been eclipsed by Asian powerhouses TSMC and Samsung, which dominate the made-to-order semiconductor enterprise.
The firm was additionally caught without warning with the emergence of Nvidia because the world’s preeminent AI chip supplier.
Intel’s area of interest has been in chips utilized in conventional computing processes, steadily being eclipsed by the AI revolution.
