President Trump took his penchant for telling corporate bosses how to run their companies to another level Thursday by publicly calling on Intel’s chief executive to resign. The move wasn’t out of character: Trump has told Detroit carmakers not to raise prices and demanded Walmart “eat the tariffs.” He’s pressured the Washington Commanders football team to change its name and wants Coca-Cola to use cane sugar instead of corn syrup.
All of that intervention is creating a risk for business leaders who thought they had largely figured out the Trump playbook. Public flattery and splashy U.S. investment announcements were supposed to placate the president and keep companies out of his Truth Social posts. Instead, the Republican is weighing in on business decisions in unprecedented ways, in industries from pharmaceuticals to banking and manufacturing.
Now that the president has called for the head of one CEO, the fear is that he will target others who displease him, executives and corporate advisers say.
“It’s wrong for the president of the United States to be telling a major corporation’s board to fire their chief executive,” said Bill George, a former CEO of the medical-device maker Medtronic, who remains in touch with executives across industries.
Trump’s post criticizing Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s past business dealings in China came the same day he used an executive order to strong-arm banks to do business with more conservatives and other political allies. A day earlier, he exempted tech companies like Apple from new tariffs on semiconductors — on the condition they increase their investments in the U.S.
“President Trump has been focused on making the United States the best place in the world to do business and invest,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said. “As the administration reorients government policies to put Americans and America first, businesses should follow suit.”
In recent months he has pushed drug companies to lower prices and threatened auto executives if they raised prices because of tariffs. His administration began its second term going after corporate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, threatening organizations that practiced “illegal DEI” with investigations.
In June, to approve a merger between Japan’s Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel, Trump secured a “golden share” that gives the president authority to appoint a member to Nippon Steel’s U.S. board and approve any closures of existing U.S. plants.
Even for Trump, a public call for the CEO of a major company to “resign immediately” is new territory, historians said. The tactic fits with his pattern of publicly targeting those he wants to influence. He had used it with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky before turning it on Intel this week.
“This is certainly not an approach the United States has seen in modern American politics,” said Meena Bose, director of a center that studies the presidency at Hofstra University. “It’s government bending economic interests.”
Intel strikes two especially raw nerves for Trump: companies’ investments in U.S. production, and China. The chipmaker’s financial troubles have limited its ability to boost its domestic investments, a Trump priority.
Likewise, China has emerged as the biggest target in Trump’s trade war, and Tan’s ties there stem from his time in the semiconductor industry and as a venture capitalist who invested in China. Tan, who was born in Malaysia and is a U.S. citizen, became Intel’s CEO in March.
Many executives have longstanding ties to Chinese partners and have to be prepared for similar attacks if they get on Trump’s radar, analysts said. “This is the new normal,” said Ray Wang, a semiconductor analyst at research and advisory firm Futurum Group.
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management, said Trump’s demand was already reverberating among corporate leaders. “It’s just a frightening process to have the military commander of the U.S. pick and choose who’s to lead private companies,” he said.
In the banking industry, Trump’s executive order is partially inspired by his own experiences being denied accounts at JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. The banks have said their decisions aren’t discriminatory and often driven by legal and regulatory factors.
Last week, Trump sent letters to 17 companies, including Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, asking them to reduce U.S. drug prices to match those in other countries. This week, he said tariffs on pharmaceutical imports will be announced soon.
Trump has shown he’s willing to intercede in other realms of society. He has issued a flurry of executive orders against law firms, saying some “weaponized” the legal system, and launched a series of broadsides against research universities dependent on federal funds.
Some business leaders said they were most frustrated that Trump called for an American executive’s ouster without detailing evidence of wrongdoing. Others said they would have preferred Trump settle the issue behind the scenes with Intel’s board.
“He has the right to say what he wants to say, but there’s a difference between you have the right, and is it the right thing to do in a free market capitalistic system?” said Harry Kraemer, former CEO of healthcare company Baxter International, who is now a professor of leadership at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Presidents including Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt have seized control of companies for not complying with labor agreements or to keep key industries afloat. In 2009, the Obama administration nudged then-General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner to resign as it bailed out the Detroit automaker. A key distinction was that the government was a big GM investor at the time.
Unless Tan improperly shared technology or acted illegally, Intel should stay the course, said George, the former Medtronic CEO. A leadership shake-up now would further delay the recovery of a company critical to the U.S. semiconductor industry.
CEOs have sought to court Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, hiring new lobbyists with ties to him and avoiding any public remarks that could offend the administration. Trump’s latest move, though, makes Washington even trickier to navigate now, business leaders say.
“I’m really uncomfortable with this kind of activity,” said Nancy Tengler, CEO and chief investment officer at Laffer Tengler Investments. Demanding a CEO’s resignation suggests the government knows best how a company should be run. “This is, I think, not the purview of the president.”
