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 …