Former US President Donald Trump has called for the immediate resignation of Intel’s new chief executive, Lip-Bu Tan, over alleged conflicts of interest. The semiconductor industry veteran was named the CEO of Intel in March, after a months-long search process. But his appointment has since been embroiled in controversy after Trump and other critics raised concerns over Tan’s business ties to China.

In a post on his Truth Social network on Thursday, Trump wrote: “The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem.” The former president’s statement was short on specifics and did not elaborate on Tan’s alleged conflicts of interest. However, the comments follow recent pressure from Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who on Tuesday penned a letter to Intel’s board chair Frank Yeary. Cotton said that he had “concern about the security and integrity of Intel’s operations given Lip-Bu Tan’s extensive business ties to the PRC,” or the People’s Republic of China.

Cotton, who has criticized Tan’s appointment before, has since been joined by other Republican lawmakers and has also elicited negative reaction from certain corners of the media. Tan’s background includes significant investment in Chinese tech companies, and Cotton and other critics have pointed to Tan’s lengthy history as a prolific investor in China as a cause for concern. “Mr Tan is a well-known and well-connected investor in China’s tech sector. This is the man America is entrusting to be the head of the nation’s most important advanced chipmaker,” Cotton wrote in his letter.

Tan is a well-respected Silicon Valley entrepreneur who has spent decades in the semiconductor and venture capital industries. His San Francisco-based investment firm and other companies it owns in Hong Kong have funneled money into Chinese technology companies. Tan’s past investments in China include Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), which is the largest chipmaker in China. He is also a former chairman of Cadence Design Systems, a California chip design software company that was fined by the US government in July for violating US export controls.

Cadence confirmed the violation last week when it revealed it had sold software that designs chips to a Chinese university with alleged links to the Chinese military. The incident and the spotlight on Tan’s business dealings with China come as he grapples with leading Intel in its most challenging period in years. Intel’s board of directors appointed Tan as its new CEO in March, after it voted to remove former CEO Pat Gelsinger in December. The transition in leadership has come at a time of existential challenge for the Silicon Valley company, which has for years struggled to keep up with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest chipmaker by revenue.

Intel Is in a Fight for Survival in the Chip Industry

Intel remains the only semiconductor company headquartered in the United States that is still capable of making advanced chips. But even with that status, the company has failed to capture a significant share of the lucrative market for artificial intelligence chips, which are now the main battleground for the global chip industry.

Intel has been awarded billions in government subsidies and loans as it tries to compete with its more successful rivals in Taiwan and South Korea. The funding is part of the Biden administration’s effort to provide government support to the domestic semiconductor industry as it tries to end the US reliance on foreign chipmakers. However, with Intel trailing far behind TSMC in leading-edge chipmaking, Tan’s bid to turn around the Silicon Valley behemoth has faced immediate pressure.

In July, Tan made it clear the stakes for Intel were high as he warned that the company might have to stop developing its next-generation manufacturing technology if it didn’t find a “significant external customer” to use the manufacturing process. TSMC has led the industry in leading-edge chipmaking, but if Intel were to stop developing its most advanced chips, the company would have a near-monopoly over the industry. That would have a direct impact on the US national security, given the importance of semiconductors to many other fields.

The precariousness of Intel’s position has coincided with an aggressive cost-cutting drive from Tan as the company grapples with shareholder pressure over profitability. The recent controversy surrounding Tan’s alleged conflicts of interest has been made worse by his drive to slash costs, and Senator Cotton made clear that Intel’s subsidies from the government place the highest burden on the company to be free of conflicts.

Intel has remained mostly silent over Trump’s call for Tan to resign, with the company and the White House declining to comment on the statement. Tan has also been mostly quiet on the matter, and Intel’s shares fell 3 percent in pre-market trading in New York on Thursday in response to Trump’s call for the CEO’s resignation.

Intel’s future is in flux. Whether Tan stays or goes, the semiconductor company’s decisions will shape not just the chip supply chain but also the next phase of the artificial intelligence industry and US technology leadership for years to come.