I hope Lip-Bu Tan brought sunscreen… Because it’s about to get HOT.

Following a brief detour to gush over Sydney Sweeney’s looks (conveniently timed right after discovering she’s a registered Republican) our President is turning the temperature up yet again. And this time, it’s Intel’s CEO who just got tossed into the MAGA blast furnace.

After months of mostly ignoring Intel’s quiet CEO switch-up back in March, Trump finally hit “post” on a full-caps Truth Social bomb, demanding the immediate resignation of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. And in classic Trump fashion, it was a full on ultimatum: (Read in Trump voice) “The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem.”

Just like that Tan went from “relatively unknown tech exec” to “prime-time villain in the MAGA cinematic universe”… and Wall Street didn’t miss the premiere. Intel’s stock dropped 5% in premarket trading the moment Trump hit “post,” before investors took a breath and decided maybe this was just another episode of overhyped political theater… the dip’s now hovering around -3%. Which, to be fair, is exactly what tends to happen when the sitting President demands your resignation in front of 6 million Truth Social lurkers like it’s Sunday night cable news.

So what’s Tan’s alleged crime? For starters, he’s got a deep history of investing in Chinese tech companies (roughly $200 million worth between 2012 and 2024) some of which, according to Reuters, have ties to the Chinese military and the Communist Party. (Not ideal when your new gig involves building chips for the Pentagon.)

And just to be clear, Trump’s not alone in stirring the pot here. Senator Tom Cotton sent a letter to Intel’s board earlier this week basically saying: “Hey, do we really want the guy funding China’s semiconductor dreams also running the company we’re handing billions to under the CHIPS Act?”

(Source: Reuters)

That’s not rhetorical either. Cotton specifically asked whether Tan had been required to divest from any of these firms, including those linked to China’s military. Intel’s official response? Something about how they’re “deeply committed to national security,” which, let’s be honest, sounds exactly like what you’d expect a guy invested in CCP-linked chipmakers to say when he's trying not to get dragged into a Senate hearing.

For context, all this drama is unfolding while Intel is already juggling flaming swords. The company’s foundry business lost a jaw-dropping $3.17 billion last quarter… and instead of charging ahead, they’ve been quietly slamming the brakes. They canceled fab projects in Germany and Poland, hit pause on a massive factory in Ohio, and started trimming operations like a startup trying to stretch six months of runway into two years. So now, the one company that’s supposed to anchor America’s semiconductor comeback is struggling with cashflow, scaling back, and catching heat from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

This isn’t really that complicated. Intel is one of the few U.S. companies capable of making high-end chips… and it's getting massive government subsidies to do it. So when the CEO shows up with a resume that includes bankrolling Chinese chipmakers, that’s going to piss some folks off (folks as in, Trump and his political buddies). And sure, Tan might try to ride this out. But Trump isn’t known for letting go of things quietly. If he can’t get him fired the easy way? He’ll make it hard.

That’s the real strategy here. Trump doesn’t need to storm into Intel HQ and personally hand out pink slips… all he has to do is keep cranking up the heat. Public pressure. Congressional letters. Headline after headline. Truth Social posts at 2 a.m. It’s a slow-drip campaign designed to make Tan so politically toxic that Intel’s board eventually does the math: it’s easier to cut him loose than risk billions in federal funding… or worse, watching shareholders start yeeting the stock like it’s 2022 all over again.

Whether Tan keeps his job or not, one thing’s becoming painfully obvious: it’s tough to argue with Trump on this one. If you’re cashing billions in taxpayer checks to help the U.S. win the chip war against China… maybe don’t moonlight as an investor in China’s chip ecosystem.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Intel as mentioned in the article.