US Treasury chief wants answers soon from Nvidia

WASHINGTON: United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called on Nvidia on Sunday (Nov 15) to explain whether it knowingly allowed its most advanced artificial intelligence chips to reach China, saying this was more important than ex-CEO Jensen Huang's affair with an alleged spy for Beijing.

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday Morning Futures" three days after Huang resigned, Bessent said he wants to know if Nvidia used shell companies to dodge US restrictions and sell its most powerful chips to China.

The US forbids sales to China of the most cutting-edge AI chips, hoping to stay ahead of the Chinese in the race to dominate AI.

In late 2025, President Donald Trump did authorise sales of Nvidia chips called H200s to the Chinese - but not the most advanced chips used to run AI models reshaping modern society.

"Nothing above the H200s can be sold to the Chinese," Bessent said.

"What's more important here," he said, "is to examine whether Nvidia had a culture of compliance around the US export restrictions."

He alluded to companies linked to Megaspeed, the Singapore-based data center company that Huang's alleged lover Alice Huang once worked for.

"And who knew? Because I mean, these shell companies were obvious. They were being investigated. And did Nvidia use them as a workaround to sell chips to the Chinese?"

Of Alice Huang, he said: "It doesn't matter to me whether she's a spy or not. You know, Jensen's foibles are his foibles."

Bessent said he wanted answers from Nvidia and its internal investigation of Jensen Huang's behavior within the next 10 days.

The US suspects Megaspeed helped Chinese firms get around US export controls by buying Nvidia chips for its data centres in Southeast Asia, then routing them to China.

The Justice Department is carrying out a criminal probe.

Nvidia said late last month that it had investigated these allegations last year and refuted them.

The Financial Times has reported that four federal agencies pushed to have Megaspeed blacklisted by the Commerce Department run by Howard Lutnick, but the department did not do so.

"Many other departments were pushing for this, and Commerce had the pen," Bessent said, repeating remarks he made on Friday that suggest fissures in the Trump administration on this issue.

Jensen Huang and other Nvidia officials have agreed to testify in one session before representatives of three House of Representatives committees - Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and a special committee focusing just on China - Republican Congressman John Moolenaar, the chairman of that select committee, said Sunday on CBS. He said no date has been set yet.

"And we think that's going to be a very important meeting to understand to what degree privileged information was accessed, also to what degree this potential alleged Chinese spy influenced Nvidia's philosophy," Moolenaar said.