Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger delivers a speech at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center during Computex 2024, in Taipei on June 4, 2024.
I-Hwa Cheng | AFP | Getty Images
Intel announced Monday that CEO Pat Gelsinger had retired from the company effective Dec. 1, capping a tumultuous nearly four-year leadership tenure at what was once America’s leading semiconductor company but which saw its stock price and market share collapse under his tenure.
Intel CFO David Zinsner and Intel products CEO MJ Holthaus were named interim co-CEOs. Longtime board member Frank Yeary will serve as Intel’s interim executive chair.
Yeary, Intel’s longest-serving board member, will now have to preside over yet another CEO search process. Gelsinger had an illustrious career at Intel, rising to become the company’s first chief technical officer at the turn of the century, before he took a senior role at EMC. Gelsinger returned to the company from VMware, where he was CEO, to stabilize Intel in 2021, replacing then-CEO Bob Swan.
Shares of Intel were up 5% Monday in pre-market trading.
Gelsinger’s retirement comes a week after Intel and the CHIPS and Science Act office finalized a $7.86 billion grant, which is slated to fund the company’s factory-building plans.
Gelsinger took over the struggling chipmaker in 2021 but the company has only further deteriorated. Intel has been mired in an extended slump due to market share losses in its core businesses and an inability to crack the artificial intelligence market. The company’s stock has fallen 52% year-to-date.
Intel revealed plans in September to turn the company’s foundry business into an independent subsidiary, a move that would enable outside funding options. In August, Intel reported disappointing quarterly results, sparking the sharpest sell-off in 50 years, and said it would lay off more than 15% of its workforce as part of a $10 billion cost-reduction plan. CNBC reported that Intel had engaged advisors to defend itself against activist investors.
In late September, news surfaced that Qualcomm reached out to Intel about a possible takeover.
— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed reporting.
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