The Trump administration and its conservative allies are pushing for the ouster of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan as the MAGA movement advances its authoritarian assault on free enterprise.

Donald Trump’s gambits to strong-arm American companies to conform with his political agenda — be they law firms, universities or chip manufacturers — have exposed the fundamental disdain for democratic principles now being practiced by the party of “free enterprise.” Tan is the latest target.

Tan visited the White House on Monday, a meeting that followed a post from Trump’s Truth Social account last week accusing him of being “conflicted” and demanding that he resign “immediately.” As Media Matters researcher Matt Gertz noted, the post from Trump’s account came minutes after a Fox Business report on a letter sent by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to Intel raising concerns about Tan’s investment in businesses with ties to China’s military. (Tan, who was born in Malaysia, joins TikTok CEO Shou Chu as a target of Cotton’s Joseph McCarthy-esque crusade against businesspeople with ties to China.)

In the letter, Cotton referred to Reuters’ reporting on Tan’s private investments and his previous job at Cadence, a tech company that recently reached a settlement in which it pleaded guilty to illegally selling semiconductor design technology to a Chinese military university. (A spokesperson for Intel told Reuters that Tan had answered questionnaires that included “disclosure of any potential conflicts of interest” and that the company handles such conflicts “appropriately.”)

After Monday’s meeting, another post from Trump’s Truth Social account referred to Tan’s rise as an “amazing story” and said Tan and White House Cabinet members are going to “bring suggestions to me during the next week.” Intel released a statement calling the meeting “candid and constructive” and said the company appreciates “the President’s strong leadership.”

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But as the mercurial president wields his influence, it’s worth noting the facts don’t appear to be as scandalous as Trump or Cotton have implied. The Reuters report, for example, does not allege that Tan has done anything unlawful. In fact, as Reuters noted in its report on Cotton’s letter:

It is not illegal for U.S. citizens to hold stakes in Chinese companies, even those with ties to the Chinese military, unless those companies have been added to the U.S. Treasury’s Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List, which explicitly bans such investments. Reuters in April had found no evidence that Tan at the time was invested directly in any company on the U.S. Treasury’s list.

In a memo to staff published to Intel’s website Thursday, Tan denounced “misinformation” being spread about him and said he’s “always operated within the highest legal and ethical standards.” The lack of any demonstrable culpability for Tan arguably highlights how blatantly authoritarian Trump’s push to oust him truly is.

It’s certainly ironic that the president who eagerly welcomed Elon Musk into the fold despite his financial entanglements with China and their related national security concerns would turn around and insist that the business leader of an independent company must step down over his alleged ties to China.

And it’s revealing that other members of the Republican Party are contributing to this obvious attack on free enterprise.