It was a Thursday before dawn in Silicon Valley when Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan found himself under attack by the president of the United States.
“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at 4:39 AM Pacific Time on August 7. Before he was Intel CEO, Tan had been a prolific investor in companies in China.
Trump and Tan had not met. While technology leaders from Nvidia, AMD, OpenAI, Amazon, Google and Palantir had all recently traveled to see Trump, the head of America’s most storied chipmaker had not spent time with the president since joining Intel (INTC.O)
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Politics was not Tan’s top priority. It had been more than 20 years since Tan, 66, had donated to a presidential election campaign. Though he spoke with a handful of U.S. government leaders, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in April, the Intel CEO did not fill the company’s top policy job in Washington for months after its prior holder, a Democrat, resigned.
Almost immediately after Trump’s attack, Intel scrambled to lock down time with the president, two people with knowledge of the situation said. That culminated in the most pivotal, roughly 40-minute meeting of Tan’s decades-long career.
Previously unreported details about Tan and Intel show how a man Trump had accused of supporting China’s interests came away from the meeting with a commitment from the U.S. government to invest billions of dollars for a nearly 10% stake in the company.
The deal gave Intel a too-strategic-to-fail aura and opened doors to potential partners who might want to win the president’s favor. It also may pave the way for the government to take more equity stakes in businesses the administration deems strategic, in what some investors previously described to Reuters as ushering in a new era of U.S. industrial policy.
Intel’s share price has risen around 80% since Tan’s appointment, outpacing the percentage gains of the S&P 500 and Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab in that time.
Reuters spoke with around 20 people who are current and former Intel employees, government advisers, and Tan’s industry contacts. Some of them questioned whether Tan has the technical acumen to restore Intel’s lead in chip manufacturing and find a winning artificial intelligence strategy, even as his skills as a dealmaker served him well in the Oval Office and elsewhere.
Though Intel’s chips powered some of the first mass-produced PCs, years of dysfunction had allowed foreign competitors such as TSMC to eclipse Intel in high-end chip production.
In statements, an Intel spokesperson said Tan needed no persuading to engage with the Trump administration. Early on, he elevated government affairs, among other functions, to report to him. Intel announced in December that a Trump economic adviser would helm the unit.
“Lip-Bu Tan has a long, and well-established history of engagement in Washington, both before and after joining Intel,” the spokesperson said. Intel declined to make Tan available for an interview.
A White House spokesperson said President Trump was using his executive power to get “the best bargain for the American taxpayer” and safeguard U.S. security.
Read the full article by Max A. Cherney and Jeffrey Dastin / Reuters
