Intel Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger has been forced out less than four years after taking the helm of the company, handing control to two lieutenants as the struggling U.S. chipmaker icon searches for a permanent successor.

Gelsinger resigned on Dec. 1, according to a statement from the company on Monday. The resignation came after a board meeting last week where directors believed Gelsinger’s costly and ambitious plan to turn around Intel was not working and change was not moving quickly enough, Reuters news agency reported, citing a person familiar with the matter .

The board told Gelsinger he could retire or be fired, and he chose to resign, according to the source.

His departure comes well before the completion of his four-year plan to restore the company’s leadership in making the fastest and smallest computer chips, a crown the company lost to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which makes chips for Intel rivals such as Nvidia.

Under Gelsinger’s watch, Intel, which was founded in 1968 and was the bedrock of Silicon Valley’s global chip dominance for decades, has declined to a market value more than 30 times smaller than Nvidia, the leader in artificial intelligence chips.

Earlier this month, Nvidia replaced Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Gelsinger, 63, has reassured investors and U.S. officials subsidizing Intel’s turnaround that its production plans remain on track. But full results won’t be announced until next year, when the company plans to bring a flagship laptop chip back to its factories.

Interim representatives

Two company executives, David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, will serve as interim co-CEOs while the company searches for a replacement for Gelsinger, who also resigned from the board, Intel said Monday.

Gelsinger started at Intel in 1979 and was its first chief technology officer. In 2021, he returned to the company as CEO.

Gelsinger said in a statement that his exit was “bittersweet, as this company has shaped my life for most of my professional career.”

“I can look back with pride at everything we have achieved together. “It has been a challenging year for all of us as we have made difficult but necessary decisions to position Intel for current market dynamics,” he said.

Zinsner is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Intel. Holthaus was appointed to the newly created position of CEO of Intel Products, which includes the client computing, data center and AI groups.

Frank Yeary, Intel’s independent chief executive, will become interim chief executive.

“Pat spent his formative years at Intel and then returned at a critical time for the company in 2021,” Yeary said in a statement. “As a leader, Pat helped launch and revitalize process manufacturing by investing in state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing while working tirelessly to drive innovation across the company.”

Gelsinger’s departure comes at a time when Intel’s financial problems are worsening. The company posted a loss of $16.6 billion and stopped its dividend last quarter. The company’s shares have fallen about 60 percent since he took over as CEO.

Gelsinger announced plans in August to cut 15 percent of Intel’s massive workforce – about 15,000 jobs – as part of cost-cutting efforts to save $10 billion by 2025.

Unlike some competitors, Intel not only manufactures chips but also designs them. Under Gelsinger, the company has worked to expand its foundry business and produce semiconductors designed by other firms in the U.S. to compete with rivals such as market leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co or TSMC.

Intel has benefited from the tens of billions of dollars that President Joe Biden’s administration has pledged to help build U.S. chip foundries and reduce dependence on Asian suppliers, which Washington sees as a security vulnerability.

After taking over as CEO, Gelsinger unveiled plans to build a $20 billion chip factory in central Ohio and invested billions more to expand in Europe, where executives also worried about dependence on Asia.