Intel shares were down more than 3% in mid-morning trading Thursday after Donald Trump called on social media for the company’s CEO to “resign, immediately.”
Lip-Bu Tan was named CEO of Intel in March, replacing Pat Gelsinger. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has questioned Tan’s ties to Chinese companies in recent days and has raised concerns about a criminal case at Cadence Design, where Tan served as CEO until 2021 in a letter sent to the company’s chairman Wesnesday.
“The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem. Thank you for your attention to this problem!,” he wrote.
Intel did not immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment about Trump’s demand.
Reuters has reported Tan has invested at least $200 million in a number of Chinese companies, including some linked to the country’s military. That has led to previous criticism of him from the investment world.
“The simple fact is that Mr. Tan is unqualified to serve as the head of any company competing against China, let alone one with actual intelligence and national security ramifications like Intel and its tremendous legacy connection to all areas of America’s intelligence and the defense ecosystem,” Bastille Ventures partner Andrew King told Reuters.
He was also CEO of Cadence during a period when the company unlawfully exported semiconductor design tools to a People’s Republic of China military university. (Cadence pleaded guilty to those charges and paid a $140 million fine last month.)
Tan’s appointment as CEO at Intel was initially cheered by investors. Shares jumped 10% on the news earlier this year and he was seen as eminently qualified and was the first outsider to ever be named a leader at the company. He has overseen plans to cut 25,000 jobs this year, but the company did surpass analyst expectations in its most recent earnings.
Trump inserting himself into the affairs of leading a non-governmental company is unique, but not without precedent. In 2009, Barack Obama asked the CEO of General Motors to resign, but that was part of a government restructuring plan for the automaker that involved an aid package for GM.
