Brian Krzanich, chief executive officer of Intel, sold millions of dollars' worth of Intel stock—all he could part with under corporate bylaws—after Intel learned of Meltdown and Spectre, two related families of security flaws in Intel processors.
While an Intel spokesperson told CBS Marketwatch reporter Jeremy Owens that the trades were "unrelated" to the security revelations, and Intel financial filings showed that the stock sales were previously scheduled, Krzanich scheduled those sales on October 30. That's a full five months after researchers informed Intel of the vulnerabilities. And Intel has offered no further explanation of why Krzanich abruptly sold off all the stock he was permitted to.
As a result of his stock sale, Krzanich received more than $39 million. Intel stock, as of today, is trading at roughly the same price as Krzanich sold stock at, so he did not yield any significant gain from selling before the vulnerability was announced. But the sale may still bring scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission for a number of reasons.
The Rule 10b5-1 plan under which Krzanich scheduled the stock sale is intended to shield executives from accusations of insider trading. But because of the timing of the plan and the length of time Intel kept the vulnerability secret, SEC officials could still see the maneuver as a trade based on insider information—especially if there was no other material reason for Krzanich to sell the stock.
In August, three Equifax executives sold blocks of stock just a few weeks before the company revealed its massive security breach. That led to the Department of Justice opening a criminal investigation of the trades. An Equifax spokesperson claimed that the executives—Equifax's chief financial officer, president of information solutions, and president of workforce solutions—were unaware of the breach when they sold small portions of their stock holdings. But these trades were not scheduled previously.
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