Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO, has now decided to part ways with the tech company. According to an official statement by the company, Gelsinger, who returned to Intel in 2021 to spearhead a turnaround, has stepped down from both his position as CEO and as a member of the company’s board of directors.
Going forward, the company appointed David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus to serve as interim co-CEOs. Zinsner was the CFO at Intel, while Holthaus was the CEO of Intel Products. They will now jointly manage the company while a search committee has been set up to find a permanent successor to Gelsinger. In addition to this, Frank Yeary, Intel’s independent board chair, will assume the role of interim executive chair during this transition period.
“On behalf of the board, I want to thank Pat for his many years of service and dedication to Intel across a long career in technology leadership. Pat spent his formative years at Intel, then returned at a critical time for the company in 2021. As a leader, Pat helped launch and revitalize process manufacturing by investing in state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing, while working tirelessly to drive innovation throughout the company,” Yeary said.
Pat Gelsinger’s departure marks the end of a distinguished career at Intel, spanning over four decades. Gelsinger first joined Intel as a young engineer in the late 1970s (1979) and rose through the ranks, becoming the company’s chief technical officer in 2001. He was instrumental in the development of key technologies, such as Wi-Fi and USB, and played a significant role in shaping Intel’s processor lines, including the Intel Core and Xeon chips.
In 2009, Gelsinger left Intel for leadership roles at EMC and later VMware, where he served as CEO. He rejoined Intel as CEO three years ago, at a time when the company was struggling to compete with rivals such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung. With Gelsinger at the helm, Intel worked to roll out new semiconductor fabs in the U.S. and abroad, supported by billions of dollars in funding through the CHIPS Act. However, the company faced substantial hurdles in executing this plan, such as the 18A process node, which was intended to restore Intel’s competitive edge in manufacturing.
Furthermore, the company struggled to compete in the rapidly growing artificial intelligence (AI) market, with Intel’s Gaudi AI chips failing to gain traction against Nvidia’s products. In addition to this, Intel’s stock price and market share also suffered during Gelsinger’s time at the helm, with the company losing ground in both the PC chip market and the data center sector. By 2024, Intel’s revenue from PC chips had declined by 25%, and the company’s data center business was overtaken by AMD. Intel’s shares are currently priced at $25.39.
“Leading Intel has been the honor of my lifetime – this group of people is among the best and the brightest in the business, and I’m honored to call each and every one a colleague. Today is, of course, bittersweet as this company has been my life for the bulk of my working career. I can look back with pride at all that we have accomplished together. It has been a challenging year for all of us as we have made tough but necessary decisions to position Intel for the current market dynamics. I am forever grateful for the many colleagues around the world who I have worked with as part of the Intel family.”
