AMD CEO Lisa Su Denies Report That She's Leaving For IBM
'Just for the record, zero truth to this rumor. I love AMD and the best is yet to come,' AMD CEO Lisa Su says in response to a report stating that she plans to leave the chipmaker later this year.
AMD CEO Lisa Su has denied a report stating that she is potentially planning to leave later this year for a top executive role at IBM.
Su tweeted on Tuesday that there is "zero truth" to the report published earlier in the day by news site Wccftech, which cited unnamed sources for its story.
"Just for the record, zero truth to this rumor. I love AMD and the best is yet to come!" she said in the tweet.
Just for the record, zero truth to this rumor. I love @amd and the best is yet to come!
— Lisa Su (@LisaSu) August 6, 2019
An IBM spokesperson pointed to Su's tweet when asked about the report.
[Related: Intel Highlights Data Center Wins Ahead Of AMD EPYC 'Rome' Launch]
The report was published a day before AMD is set to launch its second-generation AMD EPYC "Rome" server processor lineup, posing a greater challenge to Intel in the data center market.
AMD's stock price was up more than 1 percent early Tuesday afternoon.
Wccftech reported that Su is looking to join IBM as CEO Ginni Rometty's top lieutenant, with the ultimate goal of taking succeeding Rometty as Big Blue's leader. Su had reportedly been talking to IBM about her plans for a while now.
The report stated that AMD's appointment of former Synaptics CEO Rick Bergman to run the chipmaker's PC and semi-custom businesses — which AMD announced on Monday — was done to prepare Bergman as Su's potential successor.
However, Wccftech said there was a possibility plans could fall through.
Bergman served an eight-year stint as the CEO of Synaptics, a human interface hardware and software vendor. Before that, he served in senior executive roles at AMD and ATI, the graphics card vendor acquired by AMD in 2006, for 10 years.
"Bergman brings extensive semiconductor experience, a deep technology understanding from a platform and product perspective, and extensive general management experience," AMD said in a Monday press release.
In its report about Su, Wccftech touted its previous record of reporting about personnel moves before they were officially confirmed. The site pointed to its reports on former AMD executive Raja Koduri leaving for Intel, former AMD executives Jim Anderson and Mike Reyfield departing the company and Alienware co-founder Frank Azore joining AMD.
Su became CEO of AMD in 2014 after joining the company in 2012 and serving as senior vice president and general manager of AMD's global business units and chief operating officer. Prior to joining the company, she served as senior vice president and general manager of networking and multimedia at Freescale Semiconductor.
During Su's tenure as CEO, AMD introduced its new Ryzen client processor family that has taken market share against Intel's processors for desktop computers and laptops. She is also leading the company's re-entry into the server processor market with the company's EPYC processor lineup.