Pat Gelsinger

Gelsinger was raised on family farms by his parents, June and Paul Gelsinger, in rural Robesonia, in an Amish and Mennonite part of Pennsylvania. As a teenager, he received a high score on a Lincoln Tech electronics technology test, winning an early-admission scholarship. He then skipped his final year at Conrad Weiser High School and left home at 16 for college. There he earned the remainder of high school credits for graduation and worked at WFMZ-TV Channel 69 as a technician, while obtaining an associate’s degree from Lincoln Tech in West Orange, New Jersey in 1979.

In 1979, at age 18, he moved to Silicon Valley to work at Intel as a quality-control technician. While at Intel, he earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, graduating magna cum laude from Santa Clara University in 1983, and then earned a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Stanford University in 1985.

Gelsinger first joined Intel at 18 years old in 1979 just after earning an associate degree from Lincoln Tech. He spent much of his career with the company in Oregon, where he maintains a home. Gelsinger was part of the design team for the Intel 80386 microprocessor, leading the effort to port Unix to the processor. In 1987 he co-authored his first book, about programming the 80386. Gelsinger was the lead architect of the 4th generation 80486 processor introduced in 1989. At age 32, he was named the youngest vice president in Intel's history. Mentored by Intel CEO Andrew Grove, Gelsinger became the company's CTO in 2001, leading key technology developments, including Wi-Fi, USB, Intel Core and Intel Xeon processors, and 14 chip projects. He launched the Intel Developer Forum conference as a counterpart to Microsoft's WinHEC.

In September 2009, he left Intel to join EMC as president and chief operating officer. In 2012, he became the CEO of VMware.

Gelsinger rejoined Intel as their new CEO on February 15, 2021, after previously having a 30 year-long career at the company in various technical engineering and leadership roles. This followed reorganization pressure, due to languishing share prices, from its newest activist investor Third Point Management. Gelsinger led Intel's course correction, including construction of two $20 billion Arizona manufacturing plants (fabs) for its planned expansion. Media reported positive responses to Gelsinger's appointment and credited the decision for driving Intel share prices up nearly 8%. On March 23, 2021, Intel shares rose over 6% following Gelsinger’s remarks regarding company strategy.

In May 2021, Gelsinger was interviewed by Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes. Gelsinger stated that Intel plans to catch up with Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC and Korean chip manufacturer Samsung within the next five years. He announced a planned three and a half-billion dollar upgrade to Intel's fab in New Mexico.

In March 2022, Gelsinger personally announced the start of an entirely new fab built for roughly $20 billion near Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany to employ 7,000 people during construction work and 3,000 people in production work in 2027.

On December 1, 2024, Gelsinger stepped down from the position of Intel CEO and from the company’s board of directors. CFO David Zinsner and executive Michelle Johnston Holthaus were named interim co-CEOs, while board member Frank Yeary assumed interim executive Chairship as the company conducts a search for a permanent new CEO. Holthaus has also been named to the newly-created CEO of Intel products, which will oversee, among other things, its data center and AI product efforts.

On March 24, 2025, Gelsinger was named as the executive chair and the head of technology of church-focused messaging platform Gloo, where he was a board member and investor, and which he calls a "faith ecosystem". On March 26, 2025, Gelsinger also announced he had become general partner at the venture capital firm Playground Global.

Gelsinger and his wife Linda are Christians; John Crawford cited Gelsinger as influencing him to become a Christian after their work on the 80386. The Gelsingers "support multiple worthy causes", including sponsorship of disaster relief medical teams. In 2013, Gelsinger co-founded Transforming the Bay with Christ (TBC), a coalition of business leaders, venture capitalists, non-profit leaders and pastors that aims to convert one million people over the next decade. He helped establish the Sacramento-area Christian institution William Jessup University, from which he also received an honorary doctorate. Gelsinger and his wife have four children.