By Max Cherney,Jeffrey Dastin
Publication Date: 2025-12-24 11:12:00
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 24 (Reuters) – 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.
Sign up here.
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…
