Intel shares droop after Trump calls on CEO to resign over China ties

“The CEO of Intel is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!”

Trump made the submit after Sen. Tom Cotton despatched a letter to Intel Chairman Frank Yeary expressing concern over CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s investments and ties to semiconductor corporations which can be reportedly linked to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army, and requested the board whether or not Tan had divested his pursuits in these firms to eradicate any conflicts of curiosity.

Intel didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark, so it’s not instantly clear if Tan has divested his pursuits within the firms.

“In March 2025, Intel appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO,” Cotton wrote within the letter. “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.”

Tan, who took over as CEO in March, beforehand launched the enterprise capital agency Walden International in 1987 to give attention to funding tech start-ups, together with chip makers. China’s state media has described Tan as “actively” dedicated to Chinese and Asian markets, having invested not solely within the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company but additionally China’s state-owned enterprise SMIC, which seeks to advance China’s chipmaking capabilities.

The calls for made by Trump and Cotton come as financial and political rivalries between the U.S. and China more and more give attention to the competitors over chips, AI and different digital applied sciences that specialists say will form future economies and navy conflicts.

Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has raised considerations that Chinese spies could possibly be working at tech firms and protection contractors, utilizing their positions to steal secrets and techniques or plant digital backdoors that give China entry to categorized techniques and networks.

On Thursday the Arkansas Republican wrote to the Department of Defense urging Defense Secrectary Pete Hegseth to ban all non-U.S. residents from jobs permitting them to entry DoD networks. He has additionally demanded an investigation into Chinese residents working for protection contractors.

“The U.S. government recognizes that China’s cyber capabilities pose one of the most aggressive and dangerous threats to the United States, as evidenced by infiltration of our critical infrastructure, telecommunications networks, and supply chains,” Cotton wrote in an earlier letter calling on the Pentagon to conduct the investigation.

National safety officers have linked China’s authorities to hacking campaigns focusing on distinguished Americans and significant U.S. techniques.

“U.S. companies who receive government grants should be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars and adhere to strict security regulations,” Cotton wrote on the social platform X.

Intel had been a beneficiary of the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act, receiving greater than $8 billion in federal funding to construct pc chip crops across the nation.

Shares of the California firm slid 3.5%, whereas markets, significantly the tech-heavy Nasdaq, gained floor.

Founded in 1968 initially of the PC revolution, Intel missed the technological shift to cell computing triggered by Apple’s 2007 launch of the iPhone, and it’s lagged extra nimble chipmakers. Intel’s troubles have been magnified because the introduction of synthetic intelligence — a booming subject the place the chips made by once-smaller rival Nvidia have turn out to be tech’s hottest commodity.

Intel is shedding hundreds of employees and chopping bills — together with some home semiconductor manufacturing capabilities — as Tan tries to revive the fortunes of the struggling chipmaker.