Last Updated:

Intel was Aware of The Vulnerability in its Chip sets, When its CEO Sold-Off $24 Million in Stock

M Venkat Naidu
M Venkat Naidu

It is known that a risky decade-old vulnerability is discovered in Intel chipsets, which we have covered in detail here.

Intel CEO Sold-Off $ 24 Million in stock from his holdings, months after the company is aware of the vulnerability. The vulnerability which was disclosed to the public this week was known to Intel when Google informed about it last June.

That means that the Intel CEO is well aware of the vulnerability when he sold his stock and now he only holds the stock that is required to be held by the employees.

What does Intel say?

In the statement, the Intel representative said Krzanich's sale had nothing to do with the newly-disclosed chip vulnerability, saying that it was done as part of a standard stock sale plan.

"Brian's sale is unrelated," the representative said in the statement. The representative continued: "He continues to hold shares in-line with corporate guidelines."

To avoid charges of trading on insider knowledge, executives often put in place plans that automatically sell a portion of their stock holdings or exercise some of their options on a pre-determined schedule, typically referred to as Rule 10b5-1(c) trading plans. According to an SEC filing, the holdings that Krzanich sold in November - 245,743 shares of stock he owned outright and 644,135 shares he got from exercising his options - were divested under just such a trading plan.

But what it raises questions is the timeline of events Krzanich's plan was created on October 30 and by Intel's own admission, the company learned of the chip vulnerability in June.

(Source)

Comments