Intel acquisition back into the headlines: mystery company wants to buy the chipmaker

In a new turn of events for Intel, after CES 2025 is done and dusted, a new rumor of a company eyeing Intel off is back in the headlines.

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Charlie Demerjian from SemiAccurate is reporting that they've read an internal email about a company "that was looking to buy Intel outright, not parts". However, the interested party is NOT one of the companies that we've been hearing about, with Charlie adding that "we have not seen any rumor of this company's interest in public statements"

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Charlie explained in his post: "This email went to a very tight circle at the company according to our source which leads us to believe that it was quite real. When a company wants to use the press, public opinion, or investors as a denial of service weapon, they go public and go public loudly. When a company wants to actually buy something, they do whatever they can to avoid leaks to keep the price down. The way this email was circulated, or not circulated, made us lean toward it being real. That said it was far from confirmation".

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He continued: "Last week we got confirmation, directly, from another highly placed source. This took SemiAccurate from about 60% confidence in the plan being real to more than 90%. Subsequent conversations have moved it to the point of near certainty. So why all this preamble? Because it is very hard to believe it but once again, SemiAccurate has 100% confidence that the original email was real and that it said the company in question wanted to acquire Intel whole. This mystery company has the resources to pull it off, especially at Intel's current valuation too".