Intel’s stock tumbles after Trump says its CEO must resign

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan delivers a speech during the Computex 2025 exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Shares of Intel slumped Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump said in a social media post that the chipmaker’s CEO needs to resign.

“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 post after Sen. Tom Cotton sent a letter to Intel Chairman Frank Yeary expressing concern over CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s investments and ties to semiconductor firms that are reportedly linked to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army, and asked the board whether Tan had divested his interests in these companies to eliminate any conflicts of interest.

Cotton specifically called out Tan’s recent leadership of Cadence Design Systems in the letter. The tech company admitted in July to selling its products to China’s National University of Defense Technology in violation of U.S. export controls.

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

“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 more than $8 billion in federal funding to build computer chip plants around the country.

Intel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The demands made by Trump and Cotton come as economic and political rivalries between the U.S. and China increasingly focus on the competition over chips, AI and other digital technologies that experts say will shape future economies and military conflicts.

Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has raised concerns that Chinese spies could be working at tech companies and defense contractors, using their positions to steal secrets or plant digital backdoors that give China access to classified systems and networks.

On Thursday the Arkansas Republican wrote to the Department of Defense urging Defense Secrectary Pete Hegseth to ban all non-U.S. citizens from jobs allowing them to access DoD networks. He has also demanded an investigation into Chinese citizens working for defense 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 security officials have linked China’s government to hacking campaigns targeting prominent Americans and critical U.S. systems.

Shares of the California company slid 3.5 per cent, while markets, particularly the tech-heavy Nasdaq, gained ground.

Founded in 1968 at the start of the PC revolution, Intel missed the technological shift to mobile computing triggered by Apple’s 2007 release of the iPhone, and it’s lagged more nimble chipmakers. Intel’s troubles have been magnified since the advent of artificial intelligence -- a booming field where the chips made by once-smaller rival Nvidia have become tech’s hottest commodity.

Intel is shedding thousands of workers and cutting expenses -- including some domestic semiconductor manufacturing capabilities -- as Tan, who took over as CEO in March, tries to revive the fortunes of the struggling chipmaker.

Michelle Chapman, The Associated Press