Intel CEO responds to Trump’s threat

The CEO of Intel Lip-Bu Tan responded to President Donald Trump’s call to his resignation concerning alleged conflicts of interest. In a memo sent to the staff on Thursday, Tan said that these concerns were based on “disinformation”.

Tan joined the flea manufacturer in difficulty in March. He was trying to put the business on the right track when he found himself in Trump’s reticle.

“Intel CEO is very conflict and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem,” Trump wrote in an article on Truth Social early Thursday morning.

The position intervened one day after Senator Tom Cotton de l’Arkansas sent a letter to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Intel, Frank Yeary, raising issues on Tan’s investments in Chinese chips and their alleged ties with the government and the Army of China.

He underlined specific concerns concerning the old role of Tan as CEO of Cadence Design Systems, a position he held for 13 years until 2021. In July, the company pleaded guilty of having violated the controls of US exports by selling hardware and software to national Chinese defense technology without obtaining the required licenses.

Cotton also pointed out that Intel had received nearly $ 8 billion from Chips and Science Act and said that TAN associations “raise questions” about Intel’s ability to manage US taxpayers’ dollars.

In his memo to the staff, Tan retaliated on these claims.

“I want to be absolutely clear: over 40 years in industry, I have established relationships in the world and through our various ecosystem – and I have always worked in the highest legal and ethical standards,” wrote Tan.

He added that Intel works with the Trump administration to approach “the questions that have been raised and make sure they have the facts”.

Last month, Tan had described its workforce reduction plan and expenses, including the abolition of new factories in Germany and Poland – and a new AI strategy to make Intel more competitive with its rivals.

Trump was not foreign to business leaders to twist the arms to do what he wants. In addition to using prices to push companies to invest more in the United States, Trump also called Walmart to eat the increase in costs of prices and Coca-Cola to go to cane sugar instead of corn syrup. Unfortunately for Tan, he didn’t do much to put himself on the right side of Trump. Other CEOs of technology like Tim Cook from Apple, Sam Altman of Openai, Jensen Huang of Nvidia and Jeff Bezos of Amazon all met Trump personally in efforts to advance their own commercial programs.