On Wednesday, August 7, 2024, Intel was sued by the company’s shareholders. They claimed that the chipmaker fraudulently concealed problems, which led to weak financial results, layoffs of 15,000 employees, and suspension of dividends. This was reported by Reuters.

Another key element of the lawsuit is the company’s loss of more than $32 billion in market value in one day. On August 1, Intel reported its financial results for the second quarter of 2024, which sent the chipmaker’s shares plummeting.

Between August 1 and August 2, the company’s shares fell 26% to $21.48. As of Wednesday, August 7, the share price dropped to $18.99, a 34.6% drop since the announcement of the financial results.

The company’s total capitalization before the publication of its financial results was $131 billion, and as of August 7, it had already fallen to $81.19 billion.

As a result of this drop in shares, along with the announcement that dividend payments would be suspended starting in the fourth quarter of 2024 and the layoffs of 15,000 employees, shareholders filed a lawsuit in a San Francisco federal court against Intel, CEO Patrick Gelsinger and CFO David Zinsner.

Among other things, the lawsuit also alleges that the company overstated the value of its shares between January 24 and August 1, 2024, due to deliberately false or misleading statements about its business and production capacity.