Intel’s new CEO used the opportunity of his first major public speech to provide a personal narration of his education, professional background and philosophical drivers.

By Peter Clarke  

What’s at stake:

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Lip-Bu Tan coming to save struggling chip giant Intel Corp. But how? Whatever incoming CEO Tan has communicated to Intel employees, the company’s future cannot be business as usual. One possibility is that Tan was asked by the board if he is the CEO to execute on the existing ‘product-plus-foundry’ strategy and he said “Yes.” I doubt it. It is more likely Tan told the board he would only accept the role if he had complete freedom to operate, including the option to divest Intel’s manufacturing operations. Indeed, the fate of Intel’s manufacturing arm may have been decided even before Tan came on-board.  

Veteran semiconductor executive Lip-Bu Tan has accepted the position of CEO at Intel Corp and is re-joining the board of directors after a six-month absence.  

The highly-regarded Tan now comes back as the permanent CEO to replace Pat Gelsinger, who was ousted in December 2024. The financial markets clearly approved as on the news of Tan’s appointment Intel’s languishing share price popped by 12 percent. 

Since the announcement of Tan’s appointment, many observers have picked up on a sentence in Tan’s message to Intel employees. He said: “Together, we will work hard to restore Intel’s position as a world-class products company, establish ourselves as a world-class foundry, and delight our customers like never before.” This has been taken as evidence that the ‘product-plus-foundry’ strategy continues at Intel.

I think that is a naïve reading of the situation. There is other evidence to consider. 

By Bolaji Ojo

Under normal market conditions, the concept of Intel Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., (TSMC) “eyeing potential deals that would break the American chip-making icon in two” as reportedly recently by the Wall Street Journal would be considered a non-starter. A separate report from the New York Times stating Intel is working with “the Trump administration on a plan to turn over the operation of its chip-making plants” to TSMC falls in the same category.

Intel got itself into this funk. We have emptied a dozen barrels of ink reporting and pontificating on how the company got into this mess and what it must do to get out. (See: Intel Needs an Active, Competent Board, not a ‘Savior’ CEO; Intel: It’s Time for the Unthinkable; Intel-Samsung Foundry Union is a Non-Starter; Intel’s Last Hope: Private Equity LBO?; Intel Board, After Review, Insists on Token Changes; Out of Intel, America’s Dream Foundry: Here’s How; Intel’s Crisis Was Predictable. Its Future Isn’t a Mystery, Either; Intel Says it’s Building ‘Two World-Class Companies.’ Meaning, please?.)

For now, the industry can only await Intel’s next move. While we do this, however, there is another problem the industry must stay aware of, and that is the predicament laid upon TSMC – as it expands operations globally and the elevated, unprecedented and unfair expectations and demands that the entire semiconductor industry, OEMs and several national governments have placed on the Taiwanese company.