Insight-How a Silicon Valley dealmaker charmed Trump and gave Intel a lifeline

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 24 (Reuters) – It was a Thursday before dawn in Silicon Valley when Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan found himself under attack by the president of the United States. “The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at 4:39 AM Pacific Time on August 7. Before he was Intel CEO, Tan had been a prolific investor in companies in China. Trump and Tan had not met. While technology leaders from Nvidia, AMD, OpenAI, Amazon, Google and Palantir had all recently traveled to see Trump, the…