How a Silicon Valley dealmaker charmed Trump and gave Intel a lifeline

By Max A. Cherney and Jeffrey Dastin

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 24 (Reuters) - It was a Thursday earlier dawn successful Silicon Valley erstwhile Intel (INTC) CEO Lip-Bu Tan recovered himself nether onslaught by the president of the United States.

“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and indispensable resign, immediately,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote connected his Truth Social level astatine 4:39 AM Pacific Time connected August 7. Before helium was Intel CEO, Tan had been a prolific capitalist successful companies successful China.

Trump and Tan had not met. While exertion leaders from Nvidia, AMD, OpenAI, Amazon, Google and Palantir had each precocious traveled to spot Trump, the caput of America’s astir storied chipmaker had not spent clip with the president since joining Intel successful March.

Politics was not Tan’s apical priority. It had been much than 20 years since Tan, 66, had donated to a statesmanlike predetermination campaign. Though ​he spoke with a fistful of U.S. authorities leaders, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick successful April, the Intel CEO did not capable the company’s apical argumentation occupation successful Washington for months aft its anterior holder, a Democrat, resigned.

Almost instantly aft Trump’s attack, Intel scrambled to fastener down clip with the president, 2 radical with cognition of the concern said. That culminated successful the astir pivotal, astir 40-minute gathering of Tan’s decades-long career.

Previously unreported details astir Tan and Intel amusement ‌how a antheral Trump had accused of supporting China’s interests came distant from the gathering with a committedness from the U.S. authorities to put billions of dollars for a astir 10% involvement successful the company.

The woody gave Intel a too-strategic-to-fail aura and opened doors to imaginable partners who mightiness privation to triumph the president’s favor. It besides whitethorn pave the mode for the authorities to instrumentality much equity stakes successful businesses the medication deems strategic, successful what immoderate investors antecedently described to Reuters arsenic ushering successful a caller epoch of U.S. concern policy.

Intel’s stock terms has risen astir 80% since Tan’s appointment, outpacing the percent gains of the ‌S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Nvidia (NVDA) successful that time.

Reuters spoke with astir 20 radical who are existent and erstwhile Intel employees, authorities advisers, and Tan’s manufacture contacts. Some of them questioned whether Tan has the method acumen to reconstruct Intel’s pb successful spot manufacturing and find a winning artificial quality strategy, adjacent arsenic his skills arsenic a dealmaker served him good successful the Oval Office and elsewhere.

Though Intel’s chips powered immoderate of the archetypal mass-produced PCs, years of dysfunction had allowed overseas competitors specified arsenic TSMC to eclipse Intel successful high-end spot production.