Crisis communications experts advise Intel to act swiftly after President Trump called on CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign over national security concerns.
You can probably guess the type of day Lip-Bu Tan might be having.
President Donald Trump took to social media Thursday to urge the Intel CEO to resign, after a Republican senator raised concerns about Tan’s reported holdings in Chinese companies.
Of all the challenges that CEOs, university presidents, and other leaders have to manage during the second Trump administration, drawing ire from the White House might be one of the most disconcerting.
Intel has yet to issue a public statement regarding Trump’s call for Tan’s resignation. Business Insider spoke to crisis-communications practitioners to get their take on what leaders at Intel and beyond could do next. Here are four pieces of advice:Move swiftly
Kevin Donahue, a 30-year veteran of crisis comms, told Business Insider that Intel needs to get its message out on multiple fronts. Otherwise, he said, the chipmaker risks having the crisis grow.
„It’s potentially fatal“, Donahue said. „You absolutely cannot stay mum in situations like this.“
He added that beyond issuing a statement, the company’s considerations need to include investors, customers, employees, and other elected officials. Intel also needs to game out various scenarios about what could happen next and how the story will play out on social media, where the tempest intensified Thursday following Trump’s morning post on Truth Social.
„The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem“, Trump wrote shortly after 7:30 a.
