The present disclosure provides an electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuit for a chip, including: a monitoring unit, configured to generate a trigger signal when there is an ESD pulse on a power supply pad; a plurality of controllable drive units, connected to the monitoring unit, and each of the controllable drive units being configured to switch an operating state under a control of a control signal, wherein the operating state includes an output state, and the output state refers to generating a drive signal according to the trigger signal; and a discharge transistor, connected to the plurality of controllable drive units, and configured to be turned on under a drive of the drive signal so as to discharge an electrostatic charge to the ground pad.