Huang agrees to testify behind closed doors as White House backs Lutnick
The allegations surrounding Jensen Huang’s reported affair with Alice Huang, of no relation and a former executive at Singapore-based company Megaspeed, have raised the possibility that a foreign intelligence operation was targeting someone with unusually close access to the American president, the BBC reported.
US intelligence reportedly suspects Alice Huang of having links to Chinese intelligence. Beijing has rejected the allegations. Nvidia’s board says it has no reason to believe company secrets or national security were compromised. The affair has opened a much bigger question: what did the administration in Washington know, and what did it do about it?
Huang was one of the few business leaders with direct access to the president, the BBC reported. He met Trump repeatedly, travelled with him to Britain and, in May, joined him on Air Force One for his trip to China. He had become an important voice in one of the biggest arguments inside the administration: how much of America’s most advanced technology should be allowed to reach China.
That question leads to Lutnick. His department is responsible for controlling exports of sensitive American technology, and it was being pressed to act on concerns about Megaspeed, an Nvidia customer suspected of helping divert advanced chips to China.
A highly classified memo about the concerns surrounding Alice Huang and Megaspeed was shared with Lutnick, who resisted taking action against the company, according to the BBC. Other senior officials wanted a tougher response. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was among those who reportedly questioned why Megaspeed had not been placed on the Commerce Department’s blacklist.
There were also questions about why an investigation into the Singapore-based company stopped after Nvidia intervened. The New York Times reported that Nvidia’s general counsel contacted Commerce Department investigators probing suspected chip smuggling by Megaspeed, invoking a senior Trump appointee. The department allegedly then froze its investigation and handed the case to the Justice Department.
Megaspeed chief executive Tan Yong Pong, also known as James Tan, said on Thursday that the company “takes its compliance obligations under US export control laws extremely seriously” and is “committed to working constructively and transparently with the US government.” He said the company had co-operated with US Commerce Department inspections.
The disagreement sits inside a broader argument about China policy. Nvidia makes the chips that power the AI revolution, and Washington has restricted exports of its most advanced processors to China since 2022, believing they could help Beijing develop its military and technological capabilities. Enforcement is difficult: chips can be bought legally by customers in countries such as Singapore and Malaysia and then diverted to China, and Chinese companies can rent computing power through data centres outside the country.
Jensen Huang has long argued the restrictions are counterproductive, shutting Nvidia out of a huge market and encouraging Chinese companies to develop their own alternatives. Trump appeared sympathetic, allowing Nvidia to resume sales of certain chips to China last year in return for a share of the revenue, although its most advanced Blackwell chips remain off limits.
The dispute apparently highlighted a significant disagreement about the direction of Trump’s China policy, the BBC reported: Huang wanted access to the Chinese market, other officials were worried about the national security consequences, and Lutnick was caught in the middle.
Congressional pressure has built since. Democrats have launched an investigation into how the Commerce Department vetted Chinese companies approved to buy AI chips, and Republicans are also questioning the administration’s approach.
Jensen Huang has stepped down as Nvidia’s chief executive, and his departure has not eased the pressure. Colette Kress is serving as Nvidia’s interim CEO, the BBC reported, and its coverage asks who could take over permanently.
Republican Representative John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, said it was in the national interest for Nvidia and other American AI firms to succeed, but that companies “should never jeopardise our nation’s security” by giving Chinese firms access to their most advanced chips. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said Huang’s resignation did not absolve him of responsibility and urged Lutnick to explain why export control loopholes remain open.
Jensen Huang’s team told Republican lawmakers on Wednesday that he plans to cooperate with their request to testify behind closed doors.
The White House has not responded to the BBC’s request for comment. It has told the New York Post that Trump has complete confidence in Lutnick, calling him “the most transformative commerce secretary in modern history” — a fairly emphatic show of support, the BBC said, amid reports that officials are weighing whether Lutnick should be forced out.
The BBC has contacted the Commerce Department for comment. There are obvious questions: if Lutnick had indeed been warned about the risks, why did his department fail to act, and if other senior officials were pressing for action, why did it take so long?
There is an even bigger question for Trump, the BBC wrote. The president cultivated a close relationship with Jensen Huang, was directly involved in decisions about chip sales to China and, according to reporting in the New York Times, was briefed on the intelligence concerns.
The BBC wrote that the situation is becoming difficult to dismiss as the misjudgement of one businessman or one government department. Jensen Huang’s personal life may have triggered the crisis, but the questions now reach into the White House itself: how much influence did he have, what did the president know, and who was ultimately responsible for protecting America’s most sensitive technology?