Trump Makes Surprise U-Turn, Praises Intel CEO After Calling for His Resignation

President Donald Trump is doing an about-face on Intel’s chief executive, Lip-Bu Tan. Trump had just a week ago publicly urged Tan to step down. He said Monday he met with Tan and called him a “winner.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also attended the meeting. Tan and his cabinet members will now assemble technology and manufacturing proposals that they intend to present to Trump next week, the president said.

Trump posted about the meeting on Truth Social, saying Tan’s rise in the tech industry was an “amazing story.” The comments stood in stark contrast to the week before, when he had blasted Tan as “very conflicted” partly over historical business ties to China.

Intel confirmed the meeting but called it “candid and constructive.” The company included US tech and chip capabilities in the discussion.

Tan, who became CEO of Intel in March, had been on the board since 2022. He has faced political scrutiny from Senator Tom Cotton for his past leadership of Cadence Design Systems, a company that is closely connected to China.

Trump’s change of tune comes as his administration champions an even more muscular industrial policy for the semiconductor sector. U.S. officials have described a global competition with China for supremacy in chip production and artificial intelligence technology.

The same weekend, Nvidia said it would reserve 15% of certain sales to China in exchange for export control licenses granted by US regulators. Initially, Trump said, he would have made it 20%, OK, but Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang negotiated a lower figure.

Intel is currently facing major challenges. It is struggling to catch up with Nvidia in AI development. The global tech giant has spent billions of dollars on ramping up its chip foundry business, but scaled back some expansion plans in Europe and Ohio. Tan has also announced job cuts to manage costs.

Tan, 65, was born in Malaysia but is a Singaporean who immigrated to the U.S. He received his master’s in engineering from MIT. Despite calling his first few months as CEO very difficult, he’s sticking to Intel’s restructuring.

Shares of Intel rose 2 per cent in after-hours trading related to news of the meeting, indicating investor optimism over a possible renewed partnership between the company and the US government.