Intel’s Chief Executive Is Out Amid Chipmaker’s Struggles
The New York Times
Pat Gelsinger stepped down after nearly four years at the helm of the onetime highflying company, Intel said Monday.
Patrick Gelsinger, Intel’s chief executive officer, stepped down on Sunday in a surprise leadership change that reflected widening impatience with his flagging turnaround plan for the iconic Silicon Valley chipmaker.
Mr. Gelsinger, 63, an Intel veteran who took the helm in 2021 after an 11-year absence from the company, also resigned from the semiconductor maker’s board of directors. He will be replaced in the interim by two Intel executives, David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, the company said in a statement on Monday, adding that it would continue its search for a permanent chief executive.
Intel’s abrupt change was the latest sign of the 56-year-old company’s fall from grace. Intel was one of the pioneers that gave Silicon Valley its name and for years was one of the world’s best-known tech names. But the company has been mired in recent years in innovation struggles and has ceded ground to rivals including Nvidia, the reigning maker of artificial intelligence chips.
In particular, Mr. Gelsinger’s exit suggested that Intel’s board of directors had lost faith in his plan to restore the company’s growth and a stock price that had slumped 52 percent this year. The company said his departure was a “retirement.”
“We have much more work to do at the company and are committed to restoring investor confidence,” Frank Yeary, who will serve as interim executive chair on the board, said in a statement.
Intel’s struggles reached the point this year that Wall Street analysts began considering it a potential takeover candidate or a target for a breakup. The change also came amid signs that the company’s latest production process, a technology at the center of Mr. Gelsinger’s turnaround plan, might not restore Intel to a leadership position next year as he promised.
