Nvidia chip row: White House mulls ouster of Howard Lutnick over handling of export controls, Jensen Huang scandal

Senior White House officials are reportedly weighing whether to push Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick out of the Trump administration amid mounting criticism over his handling of export controls and the scandal involving Nvidia's now-former chief executive Jensen Huang.

According to a report in Reuters that cited people in the know, the scrutiny has intensified following Huang's resignation on Thursday after reports of an affair with Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman suspected by US authorities of spying for Beijing. Questions have increasingly centred on whether Lutnick's department did enough to prevent advanced Nvidia AI chips from reaching Chinese entities through Megaspeed, a company accused of illegally diverting US technology to China, the report stated.

Earlier on Thursday, a White House official said President Donald Trump "maintains complete confidence in the secretary and his ability to carry out the position".

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The controversy has also triggered criticism from lawmakers across party lines over the administration's failure to blacklist Chinese companies considered national security risks.

The US has not added any companies to its Entity List since October 2025, marking the longest gap between additions in more than a decade. The administration held off blacklisting Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, memory chipmaker CXMT and more than 100 other companies over concerns about escalating tensions with Beijing.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly confronted Lutnick at a White House Situation Room meeting over the failure to place Megaspeed on the blacklist. Lutnick initially struggled to explain the omission before saying he would "look into it", according to Axios. The Commerce Department denied the confrontation took place.

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Megaspeed has purchased more than $4.8 billion in advanced Nvidia AI chips since June 2024. Intelligence assessments reportedly suggested that its executive, Alice Huang, had been recruited by China's Ministry of State Security and had a close relationship with Jensen Huang.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Chris Coons have asked Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House chief of staff Stephen Miller to preserve documents relating to Nvidia's chip exports and associated national security risks.

Senators Ron Wyden and Representative Richard Neal have also questioned the administration's approval of advanced Nvidia chip sales to Chinese companies, including Trump's December 2025 decision to permit sales of H200 chips to China in exchange for a share of export revenues.

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Republican Senator John Kennedy said he was not yet sure whether Lutnick should lose his job but insisted the secretary must answer questions and appear before Congress. Senator Tom Cotton separately urged Lutnick to bar Chinese chipmaker CXMT from the US market.