Intel Corp. INTC

Key data

What the paycheck buys

Three of the four things Tan is graded on are money measures, and each is stated after adjustments no auditor signs. Intel's rules remove share-based compensation, so the $1.8 billion of stock handed to its people in 2025 is not spending. Put it back and the company spent $18.4 billion, just under the $18.5 billion target bar and nowhere near the $17.5 billion maximum that paid double. Revenue and cash flow were then lifted as though Altera, sold in September 2025, had stayed in the house and met its forecast, which turned a 0.5% revenue decline into a 0.5% gain. I have watched a company take credit for a business it no longer owns before, and no auditor ever opines on a bonus plan.

The record and the bars

Price return excluding dividends, computed Sep 16, 2026, an approximation of the plan's percentile math. The new-hire hurdles, off $22.79, sit at $45.58 and $68.37.

The pattern is a board that lowers the bar, then pays above target for clearing it. The long-term growth goal was set at negative 2.0%, which the proxy describes as the same decline just posted. Tan also drew a full year's $2.0 million bonus target on nine and a half months of service while his salary was prorated to $746,200.

What he does next

Pace is not his problem. The 2026 bars stay unpublished until next spring, and the street carries $62.8 billion of revenue and $9.6 billion of operating profit across 32 estimates, so the market has already funded whatever the board set.

He raises money, because nothing on the scorecard measures share count or the cost of capital. Intel issued 242 million shares at $95.00 in August for $23.0 billion, diluting owners 4.7% while leaving revenue and margin percentage untouched; watch whether the shelf is tapped again. He keeps the expensive items below the operating line, out of the plan's view: the liability for shares owed to Washington ran from $2.7 billion at year end to $15.6 billion in June, a charge that grows as the stock climbs and that Intel's rules exclude by name, so watch the gap between the reported loss and the adjusted profit. The cheapest lever is already running: capital spending fell 29% to $6.2 billion in the first half while the stock went from $20 to $102 over the plan window. Announcements are free. Fabs are not.

The tape says the people inside believe it. Tan put $10.0 million of his own money into the August offering at $95.00, on top of the $25 million required of him in 2025. Only two officers disposed of anything under code S: a chief legal officer whose separation was announced a month before her larger sale, and the Foundry chief. Everything else is code M and code F, units converting and tax withheld.

Closing thoughts

Intel pays its chief executive to grow revenue, hold spending down and beat the index, and he is winning all three by a distance. The uncomfortable part is that the two biggest costs of winning, the stock Intel prints to pay its people and the stock it owes Washington, are both defined out of the scoreboard. Share count is where those costs show up.