On Monday Eastern Time, intel announced that CEO Pat Gelsinger will officially retire on December 1 and will step down from the board of directors.

After the announcement, intel's stock rose nearly 6% in early trading before ultimately closing down 0.5% at $23.93, with a total market cap of $103.21 billion.

In the past two years, the momentum of AI has surged, and the chip industry has also gotten a boost, but the former chip giant has missed this wave of fervor, and its former glory is long gone.

So far this year, intel's stock price has dropped about 52%; while the once small competitor nvidia has now become the second-highest market cap company globally.

Forced to step down.

Gelsinger was once hailed as the 'savior' of intel.

During his nearly four years in office, he ambitiously formulated a transformation plan for the company, but was forced to "resign" due to the irreparable decline of intel.

Currently, intel has appointed two senior leaders, David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, as interim co-CEOs.

Frank Yeary, the independent chairman of the intel board of directors, will serve as interim executive chairman during the transition period.

At the same time, intel has formed a committee to quickly find a successor to replace Kissinger.

Though it is said to be retirement, Kissinger was actually "dismissed."

According to foreign media reports, last week intel's board of directors held a controversial meeting.

Board of directors members believe that Kissinger's massive and ambitious plan to reverse intel's situation has not worked, and the progress of the transformation is not fast enough.

The board of directors informed Kissinger that he could choose to retire or be dismissed, and he chose to resign.

As Kissinger departed, intel's financial difficulties were deepening.

In August, Kissinger announced a plan to cut 15% of intel's workforce (about 15,000 jobs) as part of a cost reduction plan aimed at saving 10 billion dollars by 2025.

In September of this year, media reported that qualcomm was considering acquiring the struggling intel, although its interest in acquiring intel has since cooled.

In November, intel reported a quarterly loss of 16.6 billion dollars, marking the largest loss in the company's history.

Kissinger, who is helpless.

At 63 years old, Kissinger has had a career spanning more than 40 years at intel.

Looking back, he became intel's first chief technology officer in 1979, before moving to EMC for a senior position.

In 2021, Kissinger returned to intel from his role as CEO of VMware, succeeding then-CEO Bob Swan to stabilize intel.

Upon taking office again, he devised an ambitious plan to transform the struggling company into a chip manufacturing giant, aiming to compete on par with samsung and taiwan semiconductor.

He also sought investments from the usa government to position intel as the biggest beneficiary of the usa chip and science act.

In recent weeks, the usa has begun providing funds to intel and will subsidize the company's chip factories in Arizona and Ohio.

A week before Kissinger's departure, intel and the office of chip and science act finalized a grant of 7.86 billion dollars.

Kissinger stated in a statement that his departure is "bittersweet as this company has been my life for most of my career."

"I can look back proudly at what we have achieved together. It has been a challenging year for all of us, as we made tough but necessary decisions to adapt intel to the current market dynamics."