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Chinese President Xi Jinping greets U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stands nearby, during President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing in May.Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday that four government agencies favoured putting Megaspeed, the Singapore company at the heart of the Nvidia scandal, on a trade black list, but not the Commerce Department that was in charge.
Bessent said Treasury, the Pentagon, the State Department and the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office had favoured adding Megaspeed to the Commerce Department entity list for months. “But Commerce has the pen,” Bessent told CNBC’s Squawk Box. “You will have to ask them about their internal processes.”
The Commerce Department’s so-called entity list is a trade blacklist of groups connected to China that U.S. officials say pose national security risks. The department did not immediately return a request for comment.
U.S. Senate Banking Committee chair calls on Huang, Lutnick to testify over Nvidia scandal
There is growing criticism of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick’s role in overseeing export controls on U.S. chips to China. Lutnick reportedly stalled President Donald Trump’s crackdown on companies suspected of diverting Nvidia’s chips to China, media outlets reported this week.
Megaspeed has been in the spotlight following reports that Jensen Huang had an affair with former Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, whom U.S. authorities suspect of being a Chinese spy.
Alice Huang has been thrust into the spotlight by reports of her ties to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and allegations that she could be a Chinese spy. But before drawing international attention, sh…Full Caption
Reuters reported Thursday that senior White House officials are discussing whether Lutnick should be pushed out amid a spy scandal surrounding Nvidia’s NVDA-Q now-former CEO Jensen Huang.
Bessent added that the administration was working to shut down “leakage” in the chip-export system and pointed to questions over how well Nvidia vetted its partner company amid CEO Jensen Huang’s exit this week, which sent shock waves across the AI industry.
Jensen Huang’s downfall threatens to burst AI bubble
U.S. lawmakers have called for tougher restrictions on China’s access to advanced AI chips in the wake of the scandal, which has threatened to implicate some Trump administration members, including Lutnick, amid growing questions over the administration’s oversight of chip sales to China.
“The real story here should be, did Nvidia know their client, and was there a robust effort at Nvidia to make sure that there was no leakage and that they were selling to what were obviously pass-through shell companies?” Bessent said.
“It’s important that anyone at the company there be held accountable for that.”
Asked if Congress needed to step in to act on export controls, he said: “We have all the authorities that we need. They just need to be implemented.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include the full name and title of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.