U.S. President Donald Trump called on 7th (local time) for the dismissal of Lip-Bu Tan, the CEO of Intel, amid allegations of connections to China.
President Trump asserted on his social media platform Truth Social that the Intel CEO should immediately resign due to significant conflict of interest issues. He emphasized that "there is no other solution to this problem."
Earlier, Tom Cotton (Republican-Arkansas), the Chairperson of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to the Intel board, raising suspicions that CEO Tan is associated with semiconductor corporations known to have ties to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese military, and demanded clarification.
CEO Tan, a Malaysian-born Chinese American, previously served as CEO of Cadence Design Systems and was appointed as the new head of struggling Intel in March.
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced on the 28th of last month that Cadence Design Systems violated export control regulations by transferring sensitive technology to Chinese universities developing supercomputers necessary for military modernization and nuclear weapons development, during which Tan was leading the company.
CEO Tan has also been reported to be investing in hundreds of Chinese corporations through the venture fund he manages.