Intel CEO steps down after a disastrous 2024

There is no joy in Mudville Intel’s corporate headquarters. The company has had an epically horrible year, with widespread issues plaguing its flagship chips, massive upswings from rivals AMD and Nvidia, and a stock downturn so dramatic it’s been called one of the worst performers in the industry. So, maybe it isn’t surprising that CEO Pat Gelsinger is leaving.

The announcement was made via press release this morning, calling the move a retirement. Two current executives, David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, will function as co-CEOs while Intel’s board searches for a more permanent replacement.

While Gelsinger has only been CEO since February 2021, he began working at Intel in 1979 as a technician, was instrumental as a programmer and architect for many notable Intel chips, and was a vice president by 1989 at the age of 32. He left the company in 2009 to work as an executive at EMC and later VMware, then returned to Intel three and a half years ago.

Gelsinger’s career is an astoundingly accomplished one, and he’s probably earned enough money that he never has to check the price of his eggs. But retiring at 63 is pretty unusual in the modern tech landscape, and it’s hard not to see this departure as a reaction to Intel’s incredibly bad performance as of late. The company is reeling from failing 13th- and 14th-generation Core processors (and several potential lawsuits), an uptick from AMD in the high-end desktop CPU space, and a perceived inability to stop the meteoric rise of Nvidia during the AI boom.

Intel’s stock price has fallen by more than 50 percent in under a year, making it one of the worst performers in an otherwise bullish space in the market. The situation is so bleak that rumors of a full or partial sale to another giant have been floating, with names like Qualcomm, Apple, and Samsung heard on the breeze.

Personally, I don’t think any of that is particularly likely. Intel might be so essential to consumer tech’s infrastructure that it’s “too big to fail,” especially as a potential trade war with China looms. But it’s hard to overstate how bad the company has been walloped in the last year, and I’m no macroeconomist. I don’t envy any incoming CEO their job… though I wouldn’t mind the golden parachute that they’re sure to secure before they get in the big chair.