U.S. former President Donald Trump on Thursday called on Intel’s recently appointed chief executive, Lip-Bu Tan, to resign, saying the semiconductor veteran was “highly conflicted.”

“THE CEO OF INTEL IS HIGHLY CONFLICTED AND MUST RESIGN, IMMEDIATELY. THERE IS NO OTHER SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website on Thursday.

In his post, which included a photo of Tan at his swearing-in ceremony last month, Trump did not explain the specific basis for his allegations about the CEO’s supposed conflicts of interest.

Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican, wrote in a letter to Intel board chair Frank Yeary this week that he was “concerned about the security and integrity of Intel’s operations” given Tan’s close ties to China, which he described as one of the biggest investors in his venture capital firms over the past two decades.

Intel, which is the world’s largest advanced chipmaker based in the United States, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks. The White House also declined to comment.

Intel shares dropped by 3 percent in pre-market trade in New York on Thursday morning following Trump’s Truth Social post.

Tan was named Intel’s new CEO in March this year after the company’s board of directors voted to replace outgoing CEO Pat Gelsinger, who left Intel last December. Tan had led GGV Capital, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California, for 20 years until his departure in January. The company has a “spin-off in Hong Kong that has invested in Chinese technology companies,” Reuters reported.

Tan’s recent and former investments include Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) — China’s largest chipmaker — among other Chinese companies.

Critics have also pointed to Tan’s former role as the CEO of chip design software firm Cadence Design Systems in San Jose, California. Last week, Cadence admitted to violating U.S. export control rules after it was found to have sold its chip design tools to a Chinese university with alleged ties to the Chinese military.

Tan is at the helm of Intel at a particularly tumultuous time for the Silicon Valley stalwart, which has long dominated the semiconductor industry but has lagged behind its chief rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), in advanced chipmaking and also in the race for artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

Intel remains the only advanced chipmaker in the United States, as a semiconductor with physical features that can be less than 7 nanometers is currently considered “advanced.” (A nanometer is one billionth of a meter). But as the chip industry shifts to the manufacture of AI chips, Intel has been missing in action.

In the race to produce semiconductors that will power AI, a race that many have begun to describe as the next industrial revolution and a generational contest between leading economies such as the United States and China, Intel has yet to establish a firm footing. It has also been in the past few years, which has hurt the company’s margins.

Intel has been the recipient of billions of dollars in taxpayer-backed loans and government subsidies as Washington makes a concerted push to re-establish domestic manufacturing capacity in chips and other semiconductors and reduce its heavy reliance on overseas makers of these parts.

South Korea and Taiwan, for example, account for more than half of the world’s total semiconductor sales in 2022. Intel has applied to the U.S. government for permission to receive a combined $21 billion in public subsidies for two new factories it plans to build in Arizona, and has been the recipient of other subsidy schemes in recent years.