VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger will be leaving that position next month to take over as CEO of Intel, replacing the chip giant’s long-time CEO Bob Swan who is set to retire. The C-level shakeup is set to take place on Feb. 15.

The move will see Gelsinger return to Intel where he had spent 30 years rising through the company’s ranks. He topped out there as CTO and was key to developing its original 80486 processor architecture and its Core and Xeon family of processors.

Gelsinger then moved to EMC were he was president and COO of its Information Infrastructure Products. That included oversight of that group’s engineering and operations for information storage, data computing, backup and recovery, RSA security, and enterprise solutions.

Gelsinger joined VMware in 2012, and has led that organization to its current position as a main revenue driver and innovation leader for parent company Dell Technologies.

Gelsinger’s departure will be the third high-level executive to flee VMware over the past several months.

Its former COO Rajiv Ramaswami left VMware late last year only to pop up two days later at Nutanix as its new CEO. VMware has since filed a lawsuit against Ramaswami claiming Ramaswami breached his legal and contractual duties to VMware by “secretly meeting” with Nutanix’s top brass while working with VMware’s leadership to shape that company’s strategy.

And earlier this month VMware lost Vijay Singh, who was GM of its Cloud Management Business Unit, to Pure Storage.

For Intel the move comes as the chip giant continues to battle against increasingly strengthened rivals that have undercut Intel’s once dominate position. In a statement on the executive upheaval, Intel specifically said the hiring of VMware's leader was not tied to its 2020 financial performance and that it expects its fourth-quarter revenues and earnings per share to exceed its most recent forecast.

UPDATE: This story was updated to note that VMware has now lost three top executives over the past several months.