Trump Calls Intel CEO Tan An Amazing Success Days After Calling For His Resignation
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is back in U.S. President Donald Trump's good graces after a "very interesting" joint meeting between the two, along with Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent. The meeting proved fruitful for Tan, who just days prior had Trump demanding his immediate resignation.
The brouhaha over Tan's role at Intel began on the morning of August 7, when Trump called the CEO "highly CONFLICTED" in a post on his Truth Social platform. In the same post, Trump was adamant that "no other solution to this problem" exists.
What problem, exactly? While Trump did not specify, his post came one day after Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton raised concerns on X about Tan's alleged "deep ties to the Chinese Communists." In his own post, Cotton included a letter that he wrote Intel's Chairman of the Board of Directors expressing concern about the "security and integrity of Intel's operations and its potential impact on U.S. national security."
The letter referenced Tan's past role as CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which recently
plead guilty to unlawfully exporting semiconductor design tools to the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), a university in the People's Republic of China (PRC) under the leadership of the PRC's Central Military Commission.
The U.S. Justice Department slapped Cadence Design Systems with a $118 million fine to resolve the charges, plus an additional $95 in civil penalties. Notably, however, Tan was never indicted as part of the investigation, nor was he mentioned in the Justice Department's press release announcing the guilty plea. Had Tan been culpable in any way, it stands to reason that the Justice Department would have tried to make an example of him.
Perhaps that is part of the messaging that Tan shared with Trump during their recent meeting. Following the resignation demand, Tan wrote an open letter promising to address "a lot of misinformation circulating" about his past roles, and that he and Intel were "engaging" with the Trump administration to "address the matters that have been raised and ensure they have the facts."
Whatever the case, Trump has gone from demanding Tan's resignation to praising his success, with plans for the CEO and Cabinet members to "spend time together."
"I met with Mr. Lip-Bu Tan, of Intel, along with Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, and Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent. The meeting was a very interesting one. His success and rise is an amazing story. Mr. Tan and my Cabinet members are going to spend time together, and bring suggestions to me during the next week. Thank you for your attention to this matter!," Trump posted on Truth Social.
At the time of this writing, the post has received over 25,200 'Likes' and has been re-shared on the platform over 4,750 times.
It remains to be seen what kind of agreements, if any, might arise from future meetings between Tan and Trump's Cabinet members. While all this has been going on, AMD and NVIDIA both agreed to pay the U.S. government 15% of all revenues derived from AI chip sales to China, giving the firms the green light to ship the former's Instinct MI308 accelerators and the latter's Hopper H20 silicon to the Chinese market. It's the first time that a U.S. company has struck a deal to pay a percentage of revenues in exchange for an export license.
Trump also recently lauded Apple's commitment to invest an additional $100 billion on U.S. manufacturing as a coming home party. The added investment boosts Apple's commitment to $600 billion over the next four years.
