Donald Trump has called on Intel’s new chief executive, Lip-Bu Tan, to step down from his role over alleged conflicts.

The former president, who is himself under investigation over his own foreign entanglements, wrote on his Truth Social platform on Thursday: “The CEO of INTEL is highly CONFLICTED and must resign, immediately. There is no other solution to this problem.”

Trump, who has recently made tech trade and other policy issues with China a key part of his post-presidential political messaging, offered no further explanation of Tan’s alleged conflicts in the post, which was quickly shared by one of his aides on X.

Trump’s comments come just days after Republican Senator Tom Cotton wrote to Intel’s board chair Frank Yeary to express “concern about the security and integrity of Intel’s operations” over Tan’s business and other ties to China.

Cotton cited Tan’s history of “deep and extensive” involvement as an investor in Chinese technology companies, writing: “Mr Tan has for decades been a prolific investor in Chinese technology firms through his Hong Kong and San Francisco-based venture capital firms, and appears to have funded some of the more well-known and recognizable Chinese technology companies in recent history.”

He added: “Tan’s associations with China, including his history of funding many Chinese technology companies and his frequent travels to China, raise questions about whether he is the right person to lead America’s most advanced chipmaker.”

Tan, a Silicon Valley mainstay for decades, has built up an extensive business and other network in semiconductors and venture capital, both in the United States and around the world.

In addition to his investment in the San Francisco-based company that bears his name, Tan has had companies based in Hong Kong pour hundreds of millions of dollars into Chinese technology companies over the years. One of his notable past investments is Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), China’s largest chipmaker.

Tan has also come under closer scrutiny because of his time as the former CEO of Cadence Design Systems, a California-based company that provides software tools for chip design. Cadence this week said it violated U.S. export controls by making a sale of its software to a Chinese university with ties to the Chinese military. The disclosure added to concerns about Tan’s past business network and investments.

Both Intel and the White House declined to comment on Trump’s comments. Intel’s shares, meanwhile, fell 3 percent in pre-market trading in New York on Thursday morning.

Tan, who only took over as Intel’s CEO in March, has been at the center of Silicon Valley’s reckoning after Intel’s board of directors voted to replace him with Tan in December after just eight months on the job.

Tan’s first months at the company have been tumultuous, with Intel under huge pressure to regain ground against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s most advanced chipmaker, which has already forayed heavily into artificial intelligence (AI) chips while Intel has largely missed that growing market.

Intel is the only U.S.-based company in the world that is still able to mass-produce leading-edge semiconductors, giving it an important symbolic as well as commercial role in Washington’s drive to boost domestic chipmaking and end U.S. dependence on foreign manufacturers, many of them based in Taiwan and South Korea.

Intel, which has already received billions of dollars in government subsidies and low-interest loans, has thus far underperformed on its own advanced manufacturing, leaving Tan in the crosshairs of investors and others from the moment he took over from Pat Gelsinger, who was forced to resign in December.

In July, Tan was forced to issue a dire warning that Intel’s next-generation technology, which TSMC currently leads, may have to be suspended if the company is unable to find a “significant external customer” to support its development.

Intel’s leadership, which had previously spoken only of slowing down next-generation chip development, had been facing calls to outright suspend work on the so-called 4nm manufacturing node to preserve resources. If Intel were to do so, it would give TSMC a near-monopoly in leading-edge chipmaking with huge national security implications for the United States.