Intel CEO Gelsinger forced out as chip giant falls behind Nvidia, TSMC

The company board has lost confidence in Gelsinger’s turnaround plan and told him he could retire or be removed, a source says

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Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger at the Computex forum in Taipei in June. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:50am, 3 Dec 2024

Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger has been forced out less than four years after taking the helm of the company, handing control to two lieutenants as the faltering American chipmaking icon searches for a permanent replacement.

Gelsinger, who resigned on December 1, left after a board meeting last week during which directors felt his costly and ambitious plan to turn Intel around was not working and the progress of change was not fast enough, according to a person familiar with the matter. The board told Gelsinger he could retire or be removed, and he chose to step down, according to the source.

His departure comes well before the completion of his four-year road map to restore the company’s lead in making the fastest and smallest computer chips, a crown it lost to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which makes chips for Intel rivals such as Nvidia.

Under Gelsinger, Intel, which was founded in 1968 and for decades formed the bedrock of Silicon Valley’s global dominance in chips, has withered to a market value more than 30 times smaller than Nvidia, the leader in artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

Gelsinger in 2021 inherited a company rife with challenges that he compounded. Setting lofty ambitions for manufacturing and AI capabilities among major clients, Intel ultimately lost or cancelled contracts under his watch, and was unable to deliver the promised goods, according to a Reuters special report in October.

He made optimistic claims about prospective AI-chip deals that exceeded Intel’s own estimates, leading the company to scrap a recent revenue forecast about a month ago.