Who had Pat Gelsinger retires from Intel on their bingo card?

Intel has confirmed the sudden departure of chief executive Pat Gelsinger, in a move intended to restore investor confidence in the ailing Silicon Valley giant following a year of turmoil.

Gelsinger is retiring from the Santa Clara biz effective December 1 after more than 40 years in the industry and will be replaced in the short term by EVP and CFO David Zinsner and CEO of Intel Products Michelle Johnston Holthaus. The pair will act as interim co-chief executive officers while the board of directors hunts for someone who can fill Gelsinger's shoes.

Frank Yeary, independent chair of the board of Intel, has become interim executive chair during the period of transition, while Intel Foundry's leadership structure remains unchanged.

In a statement, Gelsinger said: "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."

Yeary thanked Gelsinger on behalf of the board for his many years of service and dedication to Intel, saying that he "helped launch and revitalize process manufacturing by investing in state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing, while working tirelessly to drive innovation throughout the company."

However, he went on to state that while the silicon megacorp has made "significant progress" in regaining its manufacturing competitiveness and working towards becoming a world-class foundry. "We know that we have much more work to do at the company and are committed to restoring investor confidence."

Intel last month announced a $16.6 billion loss for calendar Q3 of 2024 – the largest in the company's history – amid Gelsinger's efforts to restructure the formerly unstoppable titan of the semiconductor industry into separate foundry and product businesses.

• Intel locks down $7.86B in funding from US CHIPS Act
• Intel losses hit $16.6B in Q3 and Wall Street is … loving it?
• Ex-Intel board members make an ill-conceived case for spinning off Foundry
• Arrow Lake splashdown: Intel pins hopes on replacement for Raptors

The chipmaker, however, has made a number of missteps recently that have seen delays to some products, plus reports of defects in its 13th and 14th-generation Core processors, while the shift to AI training in the datacenter has seen the big money siphoned into GPUs rather than the server chips that Intel makes its revenue from.

Gelsinger first joined Intel at 18 years old in 1979, and was the lead architect of the 80486 processor. He left in 2009 to join EMC as president and chief operating officer, before becoming CEO of its then subsidiary, virtualization biz VMware, rejoining Intel as chief executive in 2021. ®

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