Could very well be his intention. Justifies killing it without admitting to it as a failure of Intel, instead it's a product without a buyer. No reason to keep it.
They could have developed a next gen cutting edge node in time but they just decided against it because it was not cool anymore. Instead they decide to do... what exactly? Milk the aging x86 cow with inferior architecture using the same fab as all your competitors? I guess it makes sense to slim intel down now into a company that can be acquired easily.