“Our intention is to strengthen STMicro on an international level and certainly not to tear it apart,” said Urso, according to Bloomberg.

 Urso denied a story  in La Stampa saying that the management of ST would be split between the French and Italian governments which own 27.5% of the company.

The Italian government is reported to be using the current slump in chip markets as a reason to replace ST’s French CEO Jean-Marc Chéry, reports the French newspaper Les Echos.

The company’s first two CEOs were Italian and the third, the Frenchman Jean-Marc  Chéry, was only appointed after a multi-month stand-off during which the French government refused to accept an Italian CEO and the Italian government refused to accept a French CEO

When the last Italian CEO resigned in 2018, ST had revenues of $8.35 billion. Last year it had revenues of $13.27 billion.