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A message from Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to all company employees
- rwmj 1y agoDoes he write this ridiculous verbiage himself or does he have a team of people who "hone" it to this point? This could have been a four sentence email.
- rco8786 1y agoHe’s the CEO of a multi billion dollar company of course he has a comms team.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoSeems like one of those times to send an authentic message.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Alupis 1y agoSome context is available here: https://apnews.com/article/intel-trump-cotton-yeary-tan-206152398b39bf92ebe6391add109388 https://apnews.com/article/intel-trump-cotton-yeary-tan-2061... FTA: “In March 2025, Intel appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO,” Cotton wrote in the letter. “Mr. Tan reportedly controls dozens of Chinese companies and has a stake in hundreds of Chinese advanced-manufacturing and chip firms. At least eight of these companies reportedly have ties to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.”
- everfrustrated 1y agoIf true, questions should also be raised about the Board who must have signed off on any conflicts of interest.
- tiahura 1y agoThis is entirely on the board. They didn’t know / They didn’t clear first with govt. Either way it’s grossly negligent.
- threatripper 1y agoNobody really knows if 18a is a failure or if it was turned into one by deliberate mismanagement. It feels like when Microsoft took over Nokia.
- tlogan 1y ago> If true … I don’t know about his investments, but one fact is clear: he was CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which has just pleaded guilty to federal charges for exporting technology to China. That alone should make him ineligible to lead a company with major government contracts. If he resigns (and he will), the board should go with him.
- dangus 1y agoIf I was an Intel shareholder I would be livid. Can you imagine the look you'd get if it was 1998 and you told me that AMD would have over twice the market capitalization of Intel in the next few decades? In 1998 Intel was 50x larger by market cap than AMD. It is a company that has been catastrophically mismanaged.
- hedgehog 1y agoLivid about the problem or livid that they're talking about axing the first CEO in decades that might have a shot at fixing the problems?
- jordanb 1y agoFixing how? His first major act is to fire 20% of employees, refocus on old technology (smt) and deprioritize next gen (14a) process development. This is tantamount to surrendering as a leading foundry.
- cyanydeez 1y ago[flagged]
- woooooo 1y ago"Controls dozens of companies" is a pretty strong allegation without naming a single one. "Has a stake in hundreds" is true of anyone who owns a global index fund.
- moomoo11 1y agoTrue capitalism is embracing the free market, or trying to be close to one. In Soviet Russia you follow their rules and do everything/anything to win. In US you follow the rules there and do everything/anything to win. In China/India/country you follow the rules there and do everything/anything to win. Through law, politics, advertising. The ultimate goal is to win globally right? A true capitalist leader can operate with complete lack of attachment for the sake of the corporation.
- scrubs 1y agoHuh? What'd we supposed to learn? If we're doing billion foot maxims i prefer iacocca: you need people, product, profit. Without people you can't get the other two.
- croemer 1y agoWhat does FTA mean here? "From The Article"?
- jjcm 1y agoIt's honestly wild that a sitting US president is calling out specific company CEOs. The fact that it was done in a tweet-esque post is even more concerning. I'd expect that something like this would have been accompanied by a proper investigation and writeup stating the administration's perspective on why, but instead it's just "he's highly CONFLICTED". I don't debate his history at Cadence Design is concerning from a national security point of view, but the approach the administration took really shows how we're in a different era of politics.
- tptacek 1y agoEh. Without getting anywhere near the merits of this particular fracas, the federal government has gotten deeply involved in critiquing the management of companies like Lockheed and Boeing, both for national security reasons and because of the importance of those companies to the economy. Easy to see Intel fitting into that mold in 2025.
- rco8786 1y agoI don’t recall a sitting President publicly calling for the CEO of either of those companies to resign. Please let’s not sanewash what is happening right now.
- bgwalter 1y agoPresident Obama: https://www.politico.com/story/2009/03/gm-ceo-resigns-at-obamas-behest-020625 https://www.politico.com/story/2009/03/gm-ceo-resigns-at-oba... Sen. Warren: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/embroiled-scandal-wells-fargo-ceo-resigns https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/embroiled-scandal-wells...
- rco8786 1y agoThese are news reports after the fact. It's not normal for a president to go on twitter and publicly deride someone into resigning.
- parker-3461 1y agoAdditional context in https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-demands-highly-conflicted-intel-ceo-resign-over-china-ties-2025-08-07/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-demands-highly-con...
- michaelteter 1y ago[flagged]
- hinkley 1y agoTherapists don’t know how to fix narcissists. And narcissists don’t want to be fixed.
- DiabloD3 1y agoThis guy might be the last CEO of Intel.
- soganess 1y agoI don't really understand this. Intel was (and arguably still is) too large relative to its current technical capabilities. Yet even in this current “bad chips” era, Intel is only, at worst, about 10% behind in gaming performance (largely due to cache disparity) and is on par or better in most other workloads. From the K10 era until Zen 3, AMD processors were objectively worse (sometimes comically so) and AMD still managed to survive. Intel’s mobile CPUs remain extremely competitive. Their integrated GPUs are the fastest in the x86 space. And their SoC+platform features: video decode/encode, NPUs, power management, wifi, and so on are the best in class for x86 CPUs; they are usually a solid second place or better regardless of architecture. Subjectively, the most interesting “mainstream” laptops on the market are still, and historically have been, Intel-based. I understand that in an era where the M4 Max, Snapdragon 8 Elite, and Strix Halo each serve as best-in-class in different segments, “mainstream appeal” no longer equates to market dominance. And that is bad news for an Intel that historically just make a few CPUs (the rest being market segmented down versions of those chips), but still, to suggest they will disappear overnight seems... odd.
- threatripper 1y agoIn the past AMD needed to survive for antitrust reasons. Now x86 is losing in relevance now as alternatives are established. Nobody needs to keep intel alive.
- deaddodo 1y agoAMD also received many Hail Marys as a result of Intel’s anticompetitive behavior. Directly via payouts Intel and partners had to make, and indirectly via companies being more willing to work with them for their GPU expertise and better (out of desperation) licensing/purchase agreements. Intel can’t rely on the same. They haven’t been directly impacted by another larger company, they rely too much on a single technology that’s slowly fading from the spotlight, and they can’t compete against AMD on price. Maybe if they ended up in a small and lean desperation position they could pivot and survive, but their current business model is a losing eventuality.
- getnormality 1y agoLots of en dashes.
- xdennis 1y agoThey looked too short to be em dashes and too long to be en dashes. Sure enough, they're neither. They're minus signs. The AI is evolving.
- hinkley 1y agoSigh. Guess I’m going back to using way too many commas and living in fear of misusing semicolons. This is why we can’t have nice things.
- number6 1y agoI love semicolons and dashes. AI won't take them from me!
- threatripper 1y agoMust be a force of habit.
- sgerenser 1y agoNope they’re en dashes. Minus signs aren’t longer than en dashes anyway.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- arduanika 1y agoYup. I'd bet 98% odds that Intel CEO and/or his comms team drafted this using an LLM trained on a competitor's chips. Bearish. As if we even needed to know, at this point. edit: Downvoters -- would you honestly take the other side of that bet?
- gloosx 1y ago
- rpcope1 1y agoWhat are the odds this ends with Intel getting nationalized? I think it's really looking kind of non-zero now.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y agoIt doesn't need to get officially nationalized. Trump is already using tariffs to essentially direct large businesses. It's already been reported that Trump is requiring TSMC to take a 49% stake in Intel for tariff relief.
- Dr4kn 1y agoWhy would TSMC do this? Companies want the best chips and they can only get them from TSMC. If there isn't an alternative and building the necessary infrastructure in the US takes too long the Tarif is useless.
- emchammer 1y agoThank god Apple has been putting their eggs in their home-woven ARM basket. Now I just wish that they had a CEO who was above golden-trophy ass-kissing.
- tengwar2 1y agoPartly home-made. Arm Holdings is British-based, but owned by Softbank Group (Japanese).
- gdiamos 1y agoArm makes a specification and standard (the ARM ISA). Apple licenses that and develops their own chip, which is then manufactured by TSMC. So I guess if Intel dies the US will still have a few good CPU design firms, but no manufacturing Also note that Foxconn (China) assembles the iPhones Eg https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-factory-foxconn-china-photos-tour-2018-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-iphone-factory-foxconn...
- gjvc 1y agowho buys intel instead of AMD at this point?
- bornfreddy 1y agoSwing traders. Also those who think China-Taiwan conflict is imminent.
- nodesocket 1y agoI own both, though admittedly Intel has not panned out so far.
- extraduder_ire 1y agoIt can't be AMD, two separate companies need to exist for dual-sourcing reasons. Market cap is $86.5B ATM, so there's quite a few who could afford them.
- ac29 1y agoA lot of people? Intel, even in its current weakened state, did nearly double the revenue of AMD last quarter.
- KronisLV 1y agoMy current GPU is an Intel Arc B580 and before then it was the A580. They aren't perfect but now that they're coming down to MSRP, they're pretty good budget friendly options. I would have also unironically gotten a Core Ultra CPU if the pricing was actually... well, not insane for the value (or lack thereof) that they have. A 245K would still be an improvement over my current 5800X, though I have no idea what they were thinking of with that pricing - if their CPU prices were as competitive as their GPU prices (vendors ignoring MSRP be damned), that sidegrade release might have not been as horrible. They're still modern CPUs that work pretty well. Though when I buy Intel, it's mostly so I don't give even more money to Nvidia and support competition in the market (otherwise my build would be all AMD).
- jaian 1y agoI do. AMD has done me dirty many times in the past so I will continue buying Intel for the foreseeable future. The only thing that matters to me is single core performance and when you compare Intel and AMD in that regard they are similarly priced anyway.
- everfrustrated 1y ago[flagged]
- ncr100 1y ago[flagged]
- danpalmer 1y agoMy read is that this is a mature response to an immature accusation. This guy is well known in the industry for being mature, responsible, and having high standards. Given that context, and the context in which accusations are being made, the unfounded idea that he is corrupt due to links to China says a lot more about those spouting that idea than it does about him. Refuting individual claims would be engaging with that which does not deserve engagement, whereas pointing out the shared goals (US economic/national security) is a good way to refocus the discussion.
- everfrustrated 1y agoAnd yet this "man of integrity" didnt come out and say he has no ties to China? He just deflected and said the US has been his home for 40 years which is deflecting the point.
- dlyco 1y agoFirst, you need to know the emotional bond between Chinese Malaysians and the Chinese Communist Party, before you can say his actions are not suspicious.
- acheong08 1y agoThat is just factually incorrect. Most Chinese Malaysians are either Cantonese or Hokkien, with closer ties to Taiwan and Hong Kong than the mainland. A lot of the older folk don't even speak Mandarin. Keep in mind the CCP wasn't even in power when most migrated here.
- dlyco 1y agoemotional bond with the CCP is a bit too specific; what I should say is that the older generation Chinese Malaysians always have an emotional bond towards China, especially the PRC.
- tlogan 1y agoThe key question is this: how did the board of directors hire him knowing he had been subpoenaed to testify regarding Cadence Design Systems, and that the company has now agreed to plead guilty.
- wewewedxfgdf 1y agoThe biggest problem with Lip Bu Tan is he has given up on competing with Nvidia. What's the point of being Intel CEO if you give up? He should resign.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- newAccount2025 1y agoCan they win?
- nont 1y agoThat is not as important as if they want to win.
- greenhat76 1y agoSome of their cards were beginning to become competitive for the price in the consumer market, they were getting there imo, just afraid to sync the insane amount of money needed for R&D to get them to the next level to actually compete with Nvidia in the enterprise space. Intel is just bending over for shareholders instead of doing actual engineering. A big reason the previous CEO got yeeted.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoSeems more prudent to compete with AMD and ARM?
- wewewedxfgdf 1y agoThat's Intel's strategy - to just give up? Andy Grove would turn in his grave.
- sugarpimpdorsey 1y agoWell that was a whole lot of words that conveyed basically no information. A sort of corporate communications-whitewashed version of the My Cousin Vinny "Everything that guy just said is bullshit. Thank you."
- jordanb 1y ago[flagged]
- totallymike 1y agoI beg your pardon?
- jordanb 1y agoI put my phone in my pocket without locking it
- mullingitover 1y ago[flagged]
- sashank_1509 1y agoSo now being a bad CEO who is not of European ethnicity, will have the sitting president insinuate you not so subtly for treason. Wild. A cursory Wikipedia search confirms Tan was born in Malaysia, has lived in US for 40+ years in California, and is a practicing Christian.
- travem 1y agoThe context in the related AP article shows that they were CEO of Cadence during the time when that company violated export control rules by selling certain technology to Chinese organizations linked to the Chinese military. > According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Cadence, in July, agreed to plead guilty to resolve charges that it violated export controls rules to sell hardware and software to China’s National University of Defense Technology, which is linked to the Chinese military. Tan was the CEO of Cadence when the company violated the rules between 2015 and 2021. https://apnews.com/article/intel-trump-cotton-yeary-tan-206152398b39bf92ebe6391add109388 https://apnews.com/article/intel-trump-cotton-yeary-tan-2061...
- dyauspitr 1y agoWhy are you using they? It’s a man.
- smsm42 1y agoIt's sad that people read the headlines and immediately start screaming "racism!". I don't know if Lip-Bu Tan has done anything wrong or not, but at least there's enough evidence to suggest a massive conflict of interest and particularly the Cadence affair stinks really bad. Maybe it turns out somehow Lip-Bu Tan is completely unconnected to any of this, but claiming this all just because he's "not of European ethnicity" is complete bullshit. It's not his ethnicity, it's his actions and connections.
- selimthegrim 1y agoWhat does being Christian have to do with anything?
- horns4lyfe 1y ago
- catigula 1y agoChatGPT vibes in the statement lmao
- catigula 1y ago[flagged]
- dismalaf 1y agoJews aren't ethnically European and plenty of white Americans have sold state secrets.
- catigula 1y agoAshkenazi Jews are ethnically European and plenty of people driving motorcycles have lived but there is a statistical connection between driving motorcycles and dying.
- dismalaf 1y agohttps://hms.harvard.edu/news/ancient-dna-provides-new-insights-ashkenazi-jewish-history https://hms.harvard.edu/news/ancient-dna-provides-new-insigh... Ashkenazi specifically are mixed at most, but still have middle eastern DNA. Other Jewish groups are nearly entirely middle eastern. Pretty incredible how you can find a way to insert anti-Semitism into a post about the Intel CEO.
- kazinator 1y agoNo mention of AI; yay!
- shrubble 1y agoI view Intel as a company that has a huge number of missed opportunities: 1. They have excellent engineering resources - why didn't they just take their ARC cards and add more RAM to them? People are dropping $2K+ on the 5090 with 32GB and would surely pay $1200+ for an ARC with 32GB or even much more for one with 64GB or higher. Absolute performance wouldn't be the benchmark; being able to load larger models would make for excellent price/performance, for many lower-end uses. 2. We've been stuck at typical network speeds of 1GBit Ethernet for literally 20 years at this point. A first generation Opteron server like the Sun V20z (made by Newisys or Celestica, really) had dual-Gigabit interfaces; Intel should be pushing for 10Gb or higher as the bare minimum - and they make the 10Gb chips! More bandwidth capacity, even on the low end, will grow the computing market. And Intel has a big chunk of the market. 3. Intel did the same with their only offering dual-memory channel and thus much lower bandwidth of CPU <-> RAM ; unless you are buying an expensive server, you only get 2 channels to RAM; Apple increased their RAM bandwidth significantly and as it turns out, customers liked that, and bought more Apple CPUs. Intel has to become "hungry" once more and stop their sedate, sclerotic ways. Maybe caring about their customers would help, too.
- hakfoo 1y agoI have the feeling nobody knows what to do in terms of selling Ethernet for home use right now. The moonshot efforts are around better Wi-Fi, which is, of course, at best a "good enough" solution that keeps people from running proper wires. But even as someone eager for hard-line networks, I wouldn't have good advice for a typical consumer. If you run copper in your walls, you're really only good up to 10Gb and perhaps not even that. But if you want an optical-centric solution, that's an entirely new ecosystem that's a lot more complex. It's not just "buy a box of cable at the Home Depot and a crimp tool" anymore-- your devices might need 10GbE cards and SFP modules, you'll probably need some switches that still expose copper ports. I wonder if there's a market for optical versions of the early "LAN in a box" kits that came with a couple of cheap ISA bus cards and a spool of cable-- just selling to people something that's all-inclusive and eliminates high-frustration mismatched parts.
- unixhero 1y ago
- raincom 1y agotl dr without all bullshit: "False claims are circulating about my past roles. I’ve always acted to the highest legal and ethical standards, and I lead Intel the same way. The Board supports our work. This year, we’ll launch high-volume manufacturing on the most advanced U.S. semiconductor process—thanks to you. Stay focused. Our mission is clear, our impact critical."