Both of those things might be true, but to me, it looks more like the board is acting out of fear of shareholder lawsuits. Pat's strategy has significantly destroyed value because the market lacks visibility.

Dropping Pat will alleviate their feeling of having to do "something."

As for M&A, it wouldn't just have to be approved at the DoJ. And the Chinese will never ever approve of it (but would have to). If they do a transaction without approval from the CMA, it would be like a nuclear financial war.

I think it's high time to gut intel into parts, a la GE. Sell the Fabless to QCOM or BCOM. Sell the Fabs of one by one to GF, Tower, UMC or even tsmc. Find a PE firm for the leading edge and reconstrue it with significant rnd credits as a kind of Bell labs 2.0.

Or something like that.