Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is out
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger delivers a speech at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center during Computex 2024, in Taipei on June 4, 2024.
I-Hwa Cheng | AFP | Getty Images
Intel announced Monday that CEO Pat Gelsinger retired from the company effective Dec. 1, capping a tumultuous nearly four-year tenure at what was once America’s leading semiconductor company but which saw its stock price and market share collapse in that time.
Intel CFO David Zinsner and Intel products CEO MJ Holthaus were named interim co-CEOs. Longtime board member Frank Yeary will serve as Intel’s interim executive chair. Shares of Intel were up nearly 4% Monday morning.
“We are working to create a leaner, simpler, more agile Intel,” said Yeary.
Yeary, Intel’s longest-serving board member, will now have to preside over yet another CEO search process. Gelsinger, 63, had an illustrious career at Intel, rising to become the company’s first chief technical officer at the turn of the century, before he took a senior role at EMC. Gelsinger returned to the company from VMware, where he was CEO, to stabilize Intel in 2021, replacing then-CEO Bob Swan.
“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,” Gelsinger said in a press release.
Gelsinger set out an audacious plan when he arrived in 2021 to transform the languishing company into a chipmaking juggernaut. He sought to achieve parity with the two leading chipmakers, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. He pursued big buildouts in the U.S. and around the world, a costly endeavor that weighed heavily on Intel’s free cash flow and increased the company’s debt load.
He also wooed government investment, positioning Intel as the single largest beneficiary of the U.S. Chips and Science Act. Government money has begun to flow to Intel in recent weeks and will aid the company’s chip fabs in Arizona and Ohio. Gelsinger’s retirement comes a week after Intel and the CHIPS and Science Act office finalized a $7.86 billion grant.
Gelsinger also moved to position the company as vital to U.S. national security. He won a multi-billion dollar contract with the Department of Defense to build secure chips, and in meetings with analysts and prospective customers stressed that Intel was a trusted partner to the U.S. government.
But all that was not enough to assuage investors, who increasingly began to see Intel’s aggressive spending as a folly.
Troubled tenure
US President Joe Biden holds a wafer of chips as he tours the Intel Ocotillo Campus in Chandler, Arizona, on March 20, 2024.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
Investors became increasingly leery of Intel’s prospects, especially as the AI wave buoyed rival Nvidia and left Intel in the dust. The company’s market cap is less than half of what it was in 2021, and briefly crossed beneath $100 billion earlier this year. The company’s stock has fallen 52% year-to-date.
In August, Intel reported disappointing quarterly results, sparking the sharpest sell-off in 50 years, and said it would lay off more than 15% of its workforce as part of a $10 billion cost-reduction plan. CNBC reported that Intel had engaged advisors to defend itself against activist investors.
There is no indication yet that an activist has taken a sizable position in the company’s stock, nor any sign that overtures have been made to Intel’s board. It isn’t clear what agenda an activist would pursue at the company.
Intel revealed plans in September to turn the company’s foundry business into an independent subsidiary, a move that would enable outside funding options. That same month, Qualcomm made overtures about a possible takeover.
Gelsinger’s replacement, whenever found, will assume command of a company that is smaller and more challenged than ever before. Many of the problems Gelsinger faced were inherited: to not pursue a chipmaking mandate for Apple’s mobile devices and passing on the acquisition of Nvidia were just two of the reportedly conscious decisions that Intel’s prior leadership made that left the company at a competitive disadvantage.
Those decisions were made by Intel’s board and past CEOs. But Gelsinger’s weekend ouster raises fresh questions about the company’s governance. Lip-Bu Tan stepped off Intel’s board earlier this year, leaving the company without any directors who had semiconductor expertise. Numerous reports have emerged in the weeks since detailing a dysfunctional corporate acquisition strategy and boardroom rancor.
— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed reporting.
The Hims app arranged on a smartphone in New York on Feb. 12, 2025.
Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Hims & Hers Health shares closed up 5% on Tuesday after the company announced patients can access Eli Lilly‘s weight loss medication Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro, as well as the generic injection liraglutide, through its platform.
Zepbound, Mounjaro and liraglutide are part of the class of weight loss medications called GLP-1s, which have exploded in popularity in recent years. Hims & Hers launched a weight loss program in late 2023, but its GLP-1 offerings have evolved as the company has contended with a volatile supply and regulatory environment.
Lilly’s weekly injections Zepbound and Mounjaro will cost patients $1,899 a month, according to the Hims & Hers website. The generic liraglutide will cost $299 a month, but it requires a daily injection and can be less effective than other GLP-1 medications.
“As we look ahead, we plan to continue to expand our weight loss offering to deliver an even more holistic, personalized experience,” Dr. Craig Primack, senior vice president of weight loss at Hims & Hers, wrote in a blog post.
A Lilly spokesperson said in a statement that the company has “no affiliation” with Hims & Hers and noted that Zepbound is available at lower costs for people who are insured for the product or for those who buy directly from the company.
In May, Hims & Hers started prescribing compounded semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk‘s GLP-1 weight loss medications Ozempic and Wegovy. The offering was immensely popular and helped generate more than $225 million in revenue for the company in 2024.
But compounded drugs can traditionally only be mass produced when the branded medications treatments are in shortage. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in February that the shortage of semaglutide injections products had been resolved.
That meant Hims & Hers had to largely stop offering the compounded medications, though some consumers may still be able to access personalized doses if it’s clinically applicable.
During the company’s quarterly call with investors in February, Hims & Hers said its weight loss offerings will primarily consist of its oral medications and liraglutide. The company said it expects its weight loss offerings to generate at least $725 million in annual revenue, excluding contributions from compounded semaglutide.
But the company is still lobbying for compounded medications. A pop up on Hims & Hers’ website, which was viewed by CNBC, encourages users to “use your voice” and urge Congress and the FDA to preserve access to compounded treatments.
With Tuesday’s rally, Hims and Hers shares are up about 27% in 2025 after soaring 172% last year.
WATCH: Hims & Hers shares tumble over concerns around weight-loss business
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds a smartphone as he makes a keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta’s head of artificial intelligence research announced Tuesday that she will be leaving the company.
Joelle Pineau, the company’s vice president of AI research, announced her departure in a LinkedIn post, saying her last day at the social media company will be May 30.
Her departure comes at a challenging time for Meta. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI a top priority, investing billions of dollars in an effort to become the market leader ahead of rivals like OpenAI and Google.
Zuckerberg has said that it is his goal for Meta to build an AI assistant with more than 1 billion users and artificial general intelligence, which is a term used to describe computers that can think and take actions comparable to humans.
“As the world undergoes significant change, as the race for AI accelerates, and as Meta prepares for its next chapter, it is time to create space for others to pursue the work,” Pineau wrote. “I will be cheering from the sidelines, knowing that you have all the ingredients needed to build the best AI systems in the world, and to responsibly bring them into the lives of billions of people.”
Vice President of AI Research and Head of FAIR at Meta Joelle Pineau attends a technology demonstration at the META research laboratory in Paris on February 7, 2025.
Stephane De Sakutin | AFP | Getty Images
Pineau was one of Meta’s top AI researchers and led the company’s fundamental AI research unit, or FAIR, since 2023. There, she oversaw the company’s cutting-edge computer science-related studies, some of which are eventually incorporated into the company’s core apps.
She joined the company in 2017 to lead Meta’s Montreal AI research lab. Pineau is also a computer science professor at McGill University, where she is a co-director of its reasoning and learning lab.
Some of the projects Pineau helped oversee include Meta’s open-source Llama family of AI models and other technologies like the PyTorch software for AI developers.
Pineau’s departure announcement comes a few weeks ahead of Meta’s LlamaCon AI conference on April 29. There, the company is expected to detail its latest version of Llama. Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, to whom Pineau reported to, said in March that Llama 4 will help power AI agents, the latest craze in generative AI. The company is also expected to announce a standalone app for its Meta AI chatbot, CNBC reported in February.
“We thank Joelle for her leadership of FAIR,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “She’s been an important voice for Open Source and helped push breakthroughs to advance our products and the science behind them.”
Pineau did not reveal her next role but said she “will be taking some time to observe and to reflect, before jumping into a new adventure.”
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