Beleaguered chipmaker Intel has appointed former director Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO.

Tan will take up his new role on March 18, and also rejoin the Intel board of directors. He stepped down from the board in August 2024 after reportedly clashing with then-CEO Pat Gelsinger over his management of the company.

Gelsinger announced his ‘retirement’ from the chipmaker in early December 2024 after he failed to enact his plans to expand its global chip fabrication footprint, instead overseeing billions of dollars in losses which resulted in the company cutting around 15,000 jobs.

Intel named CFO David Zinsner and Intel Products CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus as interim co-CEOs following Gelsinger’s departure. Following Tan’s appointment, Zinsner will remain as EVP and CFO, and Johnston Holthaus will continue in her role as CEO of Intel Products.

Tan first joined Intel’s board in September 2022. He was CEO of Cadence Design Systems from 2009 to 2021 and is a founding managing partner of Walden International – a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. He is also currently a non-voting board member at Schneider Electric.

“Lip-Bu is an exceptional leader whose technology industry expertise, deep relationships across the product and foundry ecosystems, and proven track record of creating shareholder value is exactly what Intel needs in its next CEO,” said Frank D. Yeary, who took over the role of interim executive chair of the board during the search for a new CEO and will now revert to being the independent chair of the board.

“Throughout his long and distinguished career, he has earned a reputation as an innovator who puts customers at the heart of everything he does, delivers differentiated solutions to win in the market, and builds high-performance cultures to achieve success.”

Tan added: “I am honored to join Intel as CEO… Intel has a powerful and differentiated computing platform, a vast customer installed base, and a robust manufacturing footprint that is getting stronger by the day as we rebuild our process technology roadmap.”

Intel’s appointment of its new CEO comes in the same week that rumors have been swelling about a potential takeover of Intel’s foundry division. TSMC has reportedly sought to engage chipmakers including Nvidia and AMD in conversations about a proposed joint venture for shared ownership of the operations.

While, Tan has yet to publicly announce his long-term vision for Intel, in comments published by the chipmaker, he seemed to signal his want to strengthen Intel's foundry division internally, rather than handing it off, saying: “I am eager to join the company and build upon the work the entire Intel team has been doing to position our business for the future.”

Echoing those sentiments, Yeary added that the company must now work “to deliver better execution, rebuild product leadership, advance our foundry strategy, and begin to regain investor confidence.”