President Donald Trump is calling for the CEO of Intel, a semiconductor manufacturer, to resign after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) questioned his ties to China.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan joined the company as its chief executive in March of this year.
“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,” Trump wrote on social media. “There is no other solution to this problem.”
Intel’s shares dropped more than 3% in after-hours trading following Trump’s comments.
Cotton sent a letter to Intel’s board chairman on Wednesday to “express concern about the security and integrity of Intel’s operations and its potential impact on U.S. national security.”
He also accused Tan of controlling “dozens” of Chinese companies and of holding “deep ties to the Chinese Communists.” Cotton noted Intel received the largest grant from the CHIPS and Science Act, nearly $8 billion, and wrote on social media that “companies who receive government grants should be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars and adhere to strict security regulations.”
He added, “The board of @Intel owes Congress an explanation.”
The competition between the United States and China over semiconductors, critical to artificial intelligence and computer systems, is fierce. Former President Joe Biden placed a 50% tariff on semiconductors near the end of his term in office to encourage domestic production.
Trump said he would place a 100% tariff on chips and semiconductors on Wednesday during a meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook. “We’ll be putting a tariff of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors,” he said.
The president indicated that he won’t place tariffs on companies that make semiconductors in the United States.“If you have made a commitment to build or are in the process of building, as many are, there is no tariff. If, for some reason, you say you are building and you don’t build, we go back and add it up, it accumulates, and we will charge you at a later date. You have to pay,” Trump said.
TRUMP ANNOUNCES 100% TARIFFS ON SEMICONDUCTORS AS APPLE UNVEILS $100 BILLION US INVESTMENT
China and a litany of other countries are top chip sources for the U.S. The U.S. imported more than $60 billion worth of semiconductors in 2024, including $2 billion from China.
Intel is the second-largest manufacturer of semiconductors in the U.S. by revenue, second only to Nvidia. Nvidia is led by Taiwanese-American businessman Jensen Huang. Trump met with Huang on Wednesday.