Samsung, SK bet W800tr on chips — and race to hire energy officials

Samsung Electronics and SK Group, which have committed 800 trillion won ($537 billion) to building semiconductor factories in the Honam region, are aggressively recruiting current and former energy officials, according to sources in government circles. The push reflects the need for officials who can navigate complex licensing and approval processes — including power grid impact assessments — required for the projects.

Unlike the past practice of bringing in senior former officials as advisers or outside directors, the companies are now hiring in bulk at the section-chief level — mid-ranking bureaucrats — according to officials familiar with the matter.

Song Yong-sik, a former section chief at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy who left for Hanwha Energy in March 2023, has recently begun reporting to Samsung Electronics, government sources said Sunday.

Song, who passed the civil service exam in the 50th cohort, was considered an ace among his ministry peers —he was the first in his class to be promoted to section chief. After joining Hanwha Energy, he earned further recognition and moved up to executive director of energy policy at Hanwha Solutions before Samsung Electronics recruited him away.

Samsung Electronics is also understood to be scouting a section-chief-level official from the energy division of the Ministry of Climate, Environment and Energy to work alongside Song, a development that has drawn keen interest from civil servants looking to move to the private sector.

Previous cases of Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy officials moving to Samsung Electronics include Im Mi-jeong, then a senior official in the petroleum industry division, who joined at the department head level in late 2023, and Kwon Hyeok-woo, then chief of the petroleum industry division, who moved at the executive director level in 2022. Kwon was promoted to vice president level last year.

SK recruited Jeong Seung-il — a former deputy minister of trade, industry and energy regarded as one of the country's top energy officials — as president of SK Inc. last month. Jeong, who passed the civil service exam in the 33rd cohort, built a rare career spanning industry, energy and trade, serving as head of the semiconductor and electricity division, free trade agreement director, energy industry policy director, energy resources bureau chief and trade and investment bureau chief. He had been widely mentioned as a leading candidate for inaugural industry minister under the Lee Jae Myung administration when it launched, but is understood to have declined the offer.

SK also recruited Park Seong-taek, a former deputy minister of trade, industry and energy, as president of SK China — the group's China operations control tower — earlier this year. Park, who passed the civil service exam in the 39th cohort, is considered an elite among elites, having served as head of the electricity industry division, energy policy director, industrial policy director and trade security policy director at the ministry, as well as industrial policy secretary at the presidential office.

In August last year, Park Seong-jun, then chief of the trade security policy division, joined SK Telecom as head of its communications center. Government sources see his recruitment as relevant not just to SK Telecom but to SK Group's broader business environment. SK Telecom's AI data center business — which the company is developing as a future growth engine — and SK Hynix's AI semiconductor operations are closely tied to ministry policy areas including trade security, export controls and supply chain issues.

"It appears that the recent surge in recruitment reflects a convergence of interests between officials and companies, at a time when promotion bottlenecks inside ministries have become serious," a government official in Sejong said. "Most officials are just waiting for a private-sector offer to come their way," the official added. "There are even jokes going around that some section chiefs are meeting their sunbae who were recruited by Samsung and SK Hynix and asking to be taken along," the official said.