Final week, President Trump known as for the dismissal of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan over “extremely CONFLICTED” ties to China, additional escalating an already troublesome state of affairs for the manager.
In the present day, following a gathering, Trump appeared to melt his stance, even when partially.
A fast recap
Earlier than becoming a member of Intel, Tan labored as CEO for Cadence Design Methods, a agency that simply pleaded responsible to an investigation by the Justice Division over expenses of “promoting its chip-design merchandise to a Chinese language army college,” per the Wall Road Journal’s description.
To make issues worse, Tan was additionally the topic of a Reuters investigation, which discovered that he had “invested in lots of of Chinese language tech corporations, together with not less than eight with hyperlinks to the Folks’s Liberation Military”.
In the meantime, inside Intel, Tan’s relationship with the board had grown more and more strained, given his sweeping cuts to tasks, personnel, and long-term plans since taking up as CEO.
When President Trump known as for his dismissal final week, many assumed it could push Intel to a brand new breaking level. But regardless of inside tensions, the corporate publicly stood by its CEO.
Tan additionally despatched a letter to workers reaffirming his dedication to the U.S. and Intel and pledged to work with the administration to clear the air. That’s what right this moment’s assembly was about.
Tan seems to have received this spherical, however the laborious half will not be over
As famous by Bloomberg, Trump seems to have come out of the assembly with a way more optimistic view of the manager, in response to a submit he made on Fact Social:
”I met with Mr. Lip-Bu Tan, of Intel, together with Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent. The assembly was a really attention-grabbing one. His success and rise is a tremendous story.”
However that doesn’t imply Tan is within the clear:
“Mr. Tan and my Cupboard members are going to spend time collectively, and produce strategies to me through the subsequent week. Thanks in your consideration to this matter!”
This implies that the administration nonetheless hopes to strike some kind of oversight take care of Intel (very like it has additionally been pursuing with NVIDIA and AMD) to make sure that, no matter what Tan claims, neither he nor the corporate finally ends up favoring China.
Whereas neither Trump nor Intel (who has but to remark publicly on the assembly) has revisited the topic of Tan’s dismissal, the manager’s greatest problem to maintain his job should lie forward, relying on how he navigates the problems that had been already piling up earlier than the White Home acquired concerned.
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