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

Shares of Intel slumped Thursday after President Donald Trump mentioned in a social media publish that the chipmaker’s CEO needs to resign.

“The CEO of Intel is extremely CONFLICTED and must resign, correct now,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “There isn’t always any diversified device to this danger. Thanks for your consideration to this danger!”

Trump made the publish after Sen. Tom Cotton sent a letter to Intel Chairman Frank Yeary expressing danger over CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s investments and ties to semiconductor corporations that are reportedly linked to the Chinese Communist Celebration and the Of us’s Liberation Navy, and requested the board whether or not Tan had divested his pursuits in these corporations to come by rid of any conflicts of hobby.

Intel didn’t correct now answer to a query for commentary, so it is not correct now certain if Tan, who took over as Intel’s CEO in March, has divested his pursuits within the corporations.

“In March 2025, Intel appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its fresh CEO,” Cotton wrote within the letter. “Mr. Tan reportedly controls dozens of Chinese corporations and has a stake in hundreds of Chinese superior-manufacturing and chip corporations. At the least eight of these corporations reportedly hang ties to the Chinese Of us’s Liberation Navy.”

Cotton namely known as out Tan’s latest management of Cadence Blueprint Programs within the letter. Per the U.S. Department of Justice, Cadence, in July, agreed to plead guilty to resolve costs that it violated export controls rules to sell hardware and utility to China’s Nationwide University of Defense Know-how, which is linked to the Chinese militia. Tan used to be the CEO of Cadence when the corporate violated the foundations between 2015 and 2021.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Exchange and Security also fined Candence $95 million for the the same breaches, announcing Cadence admitted that “staff of its Chinese subsidiary knowingly transferred sensitive U.S. technology to entities that come by supercomputers in enhance of China’s militia modernization and nuclear weapons capabilities.”

Cadence didn’t correct now answer to AP requests.

Tan beforehand launched the endeavor capital agency Walden Global in 1987 to focal point on funding tech birth-ups, along side chip makers. China’s assert media has described Tan as “actively” dedicated to Chinese and Asian markets, having invested not handiest within the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Firm but also China’s assert-owned endeavor SMIC, which seeks to advance China’s chipmaking capabilities.

The requires made by Trump and Cotton advance as economic and political rivalries between the U.S. and China extra and extra focal point on the opponents over chips, AI and diversified digital applied sciences that consultants relate will shape future economies and protection power conflicts.

Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has raised concerns that Chinese spies may presumably very smartly be working at tech corporations and protection contractors, the usage of their positions to rob secrets and methods or plant digital backdoors that give China entry to labeled programs and networks.

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

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

Nationwide security officials hang linked China’s executive to hacking campaigns concentrated on great Americans and excessive U.S. programs.

“U.S. corporations who get executive grants ought to be guilty stewards of taxpayer greenbacks 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 higher than $8 billion in federal funding to originate computer chip flowers across the nation.

Shares of the California company slid 3.5%, whereas markets, namely the tech-heavy Nasdaq, gained ground.

Primarily based in 1968 in the beginning of the PC revolution, Intel neglected the technological shift to mobile computing precipitated by Apple’s 2007 liberate of the iPhone, and it’s lagged extra nimble chipmakers. Intel’s troubles hang been magnified since the introduction of man made intelligence — a booming discipline where the chips made by as soon as-smaller rival Nvidia hang change into tech’s most up to date commodity.

Intel is shedding hundreds of workers and slicing charges — along side some home semiconductor manufacturing capabilities — as Tan tries to revive the fortunes of the struggling chipmaker.

The fresh CEO of @intel reportedly has deep ties to the Chinese Communists. U.S. corporations who get executive grants ought to be guilty stewards of taxpayer greenbacks and adhere to strict security regulations. The board of @Intel owes Congress an evidence. pic.twitter.com/3rYhHge6Wa

— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) August 6, 2025