In a surprising move, GlobalFoundries this week announced that Dr. Thomas Caulfield had been appointed executive chairman, while Tim Breen will become the new CEO, succeeding Caulfield, effective April 28, 2025. While leadership transitions happen occasionally, the Internet rumor mill (Reddit) reacted by speculating that Caulfield, who has been rumored to be a potential replacement for Pat Gelsinger, could become the next chief executive at Intel. The rumor mill also points to recent highly irregular trade activities in Intel stock as a sign that Caulfield is headed to Intel.
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@1tw+1 It's not been stated very often and maybe get overlooked, but TSMC and Samsung need Intel Technology Development. Even if it is poorly run and costs too much.
The whole computing industry needs a company to be successful enough to fund something like $10 billion a year and Intel has been that company.
TSMC and Samsung don't spend nearly as much and although TSMC made the correct call on EUV, even there it was Intel that did all the pathfinding.
Both TSMC and Samsung saved on R&D by being fast followers of Intel, then TSMC got ahead when BK and Sohail porked the puppy on 10nm.
This is reason enough for TSMC to invest in IFS, potentially as a majority stakeholder. They can bring some much needed cost controls to TD and the Fabs, along with enough customers to fill the fabs on the newer nodes.
Everybody wins and the whole industry wins if TD can get stable, long term funding (and stop wasting so much of it).
TC as CEO then selling older fabs to GF would add 25 to 50 billion to the market cap and reduce the capital requirements of converting those fabs to sub 2nm.
If BC gets most or all of ProdCo, then Intel is left as a pure Foundry play, and the stock pushes to previous highs.
Get TSMC and maybe some customers in as investors and that should enable IFS to reorganize into something closer to what TSMC does, and be wildly profitable.
Then the stock goes into the hundreds..
To be sure, things can fall apart, but such is the risk of any tech stock.
@1nx+1jkhg5mca It sounds like Caufield becoming CEO helps IFS maybe sell some fabs to GF, and that the TSMC involvement is as an investment, not a takeover.
No doubt they would push IFS to centralize headcount, resulting in 10-20k headcount reductions.
TSMC might also help Intel get customers starting sooner.
Caufield would also make sense if at the end of all this, there are few or no product groups. Intel is just a foundry.
Broadcom would probably terminate almost all the Product group headcount, except for a few key personnel. Lots of synergies to be exploited.
GF is still in the running to at least pick off some of the older fabs.
Best to think of what is coming as the disassembly of the Intel conglomerate.
Where you land depends on who wants that piece of the pie.
https://www.techradar.com/pro/he-l-freezes-pigs-fly-rumor-has-it-that-intel-could-merge-with-amds-former-foundry-in-potential-multi-billion-deal
@rj+1jkhg5mca Tom would be hired to break up Foundry, paring it down to just the fabs needed to meet the proven demand.
Foundry could be cut in half, then grow as the Ohio site comes online, and be profitable almost overnight.
It could work with TC as CEO of the foundry if it splits off. TC has no product experience and that is where most of the profit will be made. They should either split the company or have sort of co-CEOs one for product side and one for foundry side. On the foundry side TC would be an interesting choice to see what he could do without TB and Mubadala pulling his strings and telling him when he can use the restroom. Of course, then a merger with GF would be good IMO, GF will bring the business processes of the foundry world and customer support orgs and Intel will bring the leading-edge development/fabs. TC could put together a great team of ex-IBMers, KO, GP to name a few. Bring in KA from SGP to head up mfg. Intel/GF could team up to be a very strong foundry if the right leadership team was in place and ideally, they would work with Albany Nanotech center and IBM on pathfinding and then take on TSMC. One can dream big!!!
Looks like the market is starting to read the tea leaves.
Not that I expect much but watch the stock gap up sharply if Caufield is announced as CEO.
A bunch of old fabs gonna have a For Sale sign soon..
https://x.com/dylan522p/status/1880379652054901175
Not gonna happen. TC is retiring due to personal reasons and remains as exec. Chairman of GF board. No one wants to touch INTC, since it’s a big pile of cr-p.
As usual, people are mostly missing the point, but they will get it if Caufield is the next CEO.
It won't be so much about mass layoffs, at least until your (older node) fab is owned by GF, after which you will be replaced by contract workers, or become one.
There is no other reason to bring the ex GF CEO onboard but to sell the older fabs to GF. He would be CEO for that transition, then retire.
Many of those fabs are on the same campus as newer fabs, but those campuses will be split up.
This means AZ, IR and IS campuses.
Got INTC?
Have you researched and read up on him? He will do the complete opposite and dramatically increase all of that
Good choice. He will cleanup the bloated (VPs, PEs, Senior PEs, Fellows, Directors, Senior Directors etc) and arrogant Oregon TD+IFS, Chandler Packaging and useless CPU (Atom, Xeon), GPU, DCAI teams
He is clearly no Pat Gelsinger, but maybe better than BK, so not all bad.
I worked at Malta site and he is the king of bad decisions. He doesn’t know what he is doing and has really no business at all being elevated to such positions. It’s the truth.
GF could not even finish 14nm product, conceded and ran away with their tail tucked in behind their back.
Even more disaster for Intel. US will not have any high tech afterwards.
This Tom guy from GF will be a disaster.
Intel is in the process of taking leadership in advanced nodes and this guy is not the right fit as GF is considered to be far behind in technology
I would be sweatin right now if I worked in the fabs. This guy is literally a buffoon
… but. Caulfield also stepped into Executive Chairman of GFS, that's a potential conflict of interest. I’d put a small wager on the possibility that foundry splits and merges with GFS. MJ leads Products or QC acquisition. This would all lineup with the rumor about Elon having a meetings with GFS and QC at Mar-a-Lago last month.
Why in the world? GF could not even finish 14nm product, conceded and ran away with their tail tucked in behind their back. And we think this guy will be a good CEO for Intel!!! Give me a break.
Tom will do great if he is willing and can get rid off the current ELT including MJ & DZ and bring in some good kick a-s people in order to turn the decayed culture around and right size the company.
it is very intriguing rumor, but this makes far to much sense to be real... Why would Intel hire a proven semiconductor manufacturing exec? The guy probably can't give a keynote or spin PowerPoint worth a darn.
As I have been saying for a very long time - Intel will become a holding company with Product side, Foundry, PSG, Mobile Eye, etc all being subsidiaries.
So, 2 more CEO's to hire - one for foundry, one for the holding company.
If that happens, Intel has to sell the design side or spin it off to keep focus on one thing to survive.
Stock buy-backs are a red herring (the stock trade under discussion). Under terms of the Chips Act, buy-backs are strongly discouraged if not outright banned..
@a7, Intel is a dumpster, so he’d fit right in.
Link if anybody’s interested
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/intels-vacant-ceo-spot-rumored-to-be-filled-by-toms-caulfield-abrupt-globalfoundries-shakeup-sparks-speculation
No we don’t want someone from this dumpster fire GF company