Gelsinger spent most of his career at Intel, rising to chief technology officer before leaving to run VMWare in 2012 and then returning as CEO in 2021. He was generally well respected by Wall Street and industry insiders, but on his watch, the stock underperformed the market as Intel lost ground in the AI race to Nvidia.

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger's removal has put an abrupt end to his role in the struggling chipmaker's turnaround efforts, leaving Wall Street with doubts whether his ambitious revival plan is headed for the chopping block.