Intel taps industry veteran as newest CEO in latest comeback attempt

Struggling chipmaker Intel has hired former board member and semiconductor industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan as the latest in a succession of CEOs to attempt to turn around a once-dominant company that helped define Silicon Valley.

Tan, 65, will take over the daunting job next Tuesday, more than three months after Intel’s previous CEO, Pat Gelsinger, abruptly retired amid a deepening downturn that triggered massive layoffs and raised questions about the chipmaker’s ability to survive as an independent company.

This won’t be Tan’s first time running a semiconductor company, nor his first association with Intel. He spent more than a decade as CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which makes software that helps designs processors, and joined Intel’s board of directors in 2022 before stepping down last August. Tan will rejoin Intel’s board in addition to becoming CEO.

“Lip-Bu is an exceptional leader whose technology industry expertise, deep relationships across the product and foundry ecosystems, and proven track record of creating shareholder value is exactly what Intel needs in its next CEO,” Intel’s interim Executive Chairman Frank Yeary said.

Intel has been led by interim co-CEOs, David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, since Gelsinger walked away from a job that he undertook in February 2021.

Although Gelsinger arrived at Intel amid high hopes, his tenure was a major letdown as Intel’s stock price plunged 60%, wiping out $160 billion in shareholder wealth. Leading up to his departure last year, Intel laid of 17,500 of its employees—about 15% of its workforce—and suspended its dividend to save money on its way to an annual loss of $19 billion.

More recently, Intel delayed the opening of two new chip factories in Ohio to ensure the projects are completed in a “financially responsible manner.” The project is supposed to draw upon the $7.8 billion in funding earmarked for Intel in the CHIPS Incentives Program created during the administration of President Joe Biden.

It was the latest sign of distress for Intel, a Santa Clara, California, company that helped launch Silicon Valley by developing the microprocessors that enabled the personal computer revolution under the leadership of its CEO at that time, Andy Grove.

But as its leadership changed 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.

Nvida now boasts a market value of $2.8 trillion compared to Intel’s $90 billion. Intel’s stock price rose more than 10% in Wednesday’s extended trading after Tan’s hiring was announced, indicating investors believe he will revive the company’s fortunes.

While Tan was Cadence Design’s CEO from January 2009 to May 2021, the company’s stock price increased by 44-fold.

Tan’s past accomplishments resulted him being named winner of the Semiconductor Industry Association’s 2022 Robert Noyce Award—an honor named after one of Intel’s co-founders.

—Michael Liedtke, AP Technology Writer

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