About two months ago, SemiAccurate was read an email about a company trying to acquire Intel, whole. We have absolute faith in the accuracy of this email but it took months to confirm it.
First a little history, remember when SemiAccurate called the Intel 10nm problems in 2016? And then people laughed when in 2019 we directly said that Intel could collapse (Sorry no direct link because Twitter seems to have deleted all posts before mid-2020), then said we were guessing when the problems we chronicled became undeniable. There are many more deep stories about Intel SemiAccurate has broken, we say this not to pat ourselves on the back but to point out we know the company.
All that said about two months ago, SemiAccurate was read an email about a company that was looking to buy Intel outright, not parts. This is not one of those companies thrown out by clickbait sites after Pat Gelsinger was fired, we have not seen any rumor of this company’s interest in public statements. Our problem was that while we knew the email was real and it said directly that the company was interested acquiring Intel, we couldn’t determine if it was a plan of action or just a CEO tossing ideas out.
This email went to a very tight circle at the company according to our source which leads us to believe that it was quite real. When a company wants to use the press, public opinion, or investors as a denial of service weapon, they go public and go public loudly. When a company wants to actually buy something, they do whatever they can to avoid leaks to keep the price down. The way this email was circulated, or not circulated, made us lean toward it being real. That said it was far from confirmation.
Last week we got confirmation, directly, from another highly placed source. This took SemiAccurate from about 60% confidence in the plan being real to more than 90%. Subsequent conversations have moved it to the point of near certainty. So why all this preamble? Because it is very hard to believe it but once again, SemiAccurate has 100% confidence that the original email was real and that it said the company in question wanted to acquire Intel whole. This mystery company has the resources to pull it off, especially at Intel’s current valuation too.
So who is it, and what might that have to do with Intel’s current CEO situation? Please sit down before reading on, reader safety comes first.
Note: The following is analysis for professional level subscribers only.
Disclosures: Charlie Demerjian and Stone Arch Networking Services, Inc. have no consulting relationships, investment relationships, or hold any investment positions with any of the companies mentioned in this report.
