Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger calls for prayer and fasting for employees

Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who stepped down from his leadership post a week ago, is asking people to join him in praying and fasting for the company's struggling employees.

“Every Thursday I do 24 hours of prayer and fasting,” Gelsinger wrote in the X on Sunday morning. “This week, please join us in praying and fasting for the 100,000 Intel employees who are going through this difficult time. Intel and its teams are critical to the future of our industry and America.”

Mr. Gelsinger, 63, resigned from Intel and its Mobileye subsidiary on Dec. 1 after spending a 30-year career at the company, including the past four years as CEO. Gelsinger's departure comes amid a four-year turnaround plan aimed at strengthening the company, which has struggled amid the rise of rivals such as Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Intel's chip manufacturing competitiveness.

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Two senior executives, David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, will serve as interim co-CEOs as the board conducts a search for a new chief executive, which has already begun. The company has already established a search committee and said it will “work diligently and swiftly” to find Mr. Gelsinger. Permanent replacement.

Intel recently received billions of dollars in funding from the federal government. chips methodprovides subsidies, loans and tax credits to chip makers with the goal of bringing more semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States from overseas.

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Department of Commerce decides to invest approximately $8 billion in CHIPS Act Funding for Intel It was a week before Mr. Gelsinger's retirement, but the amount was less than his original compensation under the law, as he received a $3 billion contract from the Pentagon in September.

Then-Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger shows U.S. President Joe Biden processors and semiconductor wafers during a tour of Intel's Ocotillo campus in Chandler, Arizona, March 20, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images/Getty Images)

The company had long been expected to be the primary beneficiary of tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies allocated under the bipartisan CHIPS Act passed two years ago. But instead of creating the jobs promised under the policy, the company cut its workforce by 15% in August.

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Some experts have expressed concern that the federal government is pouring large sums of tax money into struggling semiconductor manufacturers. Intel stock is currently down more than 56% since the beginning of the year.

FOX Business' Eric Revell and Daniella Genovese contributed to this report.