This looks really bad from a PR perspective. Huge performance effecting security vulnerability and their CEO might have traded on insider info, doesn't look good.
I hope their lawyers have been productive these last few months before this all went public.
Let's say this were a company that you're very sympathetic toward. Or not. In either case, couldn't it still be a honest bug (as in, an "honest mistake"). They should still take their responsibility, held responsible, in court if necessary, but let any one of us who is without bugs, throw the first stone? Or is Intel somehow special? I sincerely ask you.
Sure there can be honest mistakes, but what exactly is honest about dumping your shares knowing about the bug without disclosing it? Intel just flushed the last bit of credibility down the drain by this. I really hope AMD can profit long-term from this, we really need more players in this game.
defining "honest mistake" for a company is quite difficult compared to an individual.
However there are lots of anecdotes from insiders emerging that suggest negligence through substantial changes and cuts in verification that may well have been a primary factor.
By comparison, if spacex had a massive disaster that affected everyone and it was found that they cut their testing team in half to re-appropriate resources 5 years earlier would you still call it an "honest mistake"?
I hope their lawyers have been productive these last few months before this all went public.