Senate Calls Huang and Lutnick to Testify as Bessent Says Commerce Held the Pen on Blacklisting Megaspeed

Updated November 13, 2026, evening: The Senate Banking Committee has asked Jensen Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to testify in December, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said publicly that the decision on blacklisting Megaspeed sat with Commerce. The new section directly below covers it; the earlier November 13 update, the November 12, November 11, November 10, November 9 and November 8 updates and the original report follow unchanged.

November 13, evening: the questions move to the Commerce Department#

Huang is no longer the only official target. Senate Banking Committee chairman Tim Scott has asked Huang to testify on December 3 and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on December 10, the committee's Republican account posted on November 13. Scott's letter says the committee is "prepared to use all tools at our disposal, including subpoenas" if either does not appear voluntarily, and cites its jurisdiction over export controls, including their application to Nvidia's advanced-chip exports, Fortune reported.

The House timetable is firmer than it was this morning. Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Brian Mast said on Thursday that Huang "has agreed to come" before Thanksgiving, with the day still under negotiation; the closed-door session is likely to be under oath, transcribed and video recorded, Moneycontrol reported.

The administration's own split is now public. "Treasury, War, USTR, and State — they were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months, but Commerce has the pen," Bessent told CNBC on Friday, according to Axios, adding that reporters would "have to ask them about their internal processes." Commerce did not immediately respond to Axios. A day earlier, two people familiar with the situation told Reuters that senior White House officials were discussing whether Lutnick should be pushed out, while a White House official said President Trump "maintains complete confidence" in him. Reuters also reported that the US has posted no additions to the entity list since October 2025. Bessent is the same official who this week described a planned US-China dialogue on testing advanced AI models.

The espionage question is still open. Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Thursday that the Justice Department has not concluded whether Alice Huang was a Chinese spy, and that "of course" the FBI is investigating; Trump said in an interview that it had not yet been determined, Reuters reported. Singapore's Home Affairs Ministry said Alice Huang left the country in February and was barred from re-entering after an investigation into possible offences that did not concern espionage, according to the same report.

Limits of the November 13 evening update#

• The Senate hearings are requests. We did not see Huang or Lutnick publicly accept the December dates, and we read the committee's post and letter as quoted by Fortune, not the letters themselves.
• Mast's timing is his own account; no date for the House session had been announced.
• The White House discussion of Lutnick's future rests on two unnamed people; Commerce did not respond to Reuters or Axios.
• Bessent's remarks are quoted from Axios's account of the CNBC interview.

Updated November 13, 2026: Jensen Huang has agreed to testify to House committees, two senior Democrats have opened an inquiry into the Commerce Department's handling of Nvidia's China sales, and the shares closed 4.3% lower on the day he resigned. The new section directly below covers it; the November 12, November 11, November 10, November 9 and November 8 updates and the original report follow unchanged.

November 13: From the boardroom to Congress#

The question is shifting from Huang's conduct to Washington's. Hours after resigning, Huang agreed on Thursday, November 12 to testify in a closed-door session to a Republican-led group drawn from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, TechCrunch reported. The group had threatened to subpoena him if he did not appear voluntarily.

The same day, Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick asking the department to preserve all records on its Section 232 semiconductor investigation and tariffs, its approval of Nvidia's export licence applications, and its communications with or about Nvidia and Huang. Their release describes an arrangement under which Taiwan-made Nvidia chips could be sold to Chinese companies if first imported into the United States for a security review, paying a 25% tariff under Section 232, before Commerce granted an export licence. The letter calls this "an unconstitutional export tax". Citing press reports, the two lawmakers say Lutnick and President Trump had been briefed about Huang's relationship but still approved the exports. As members of the minority party, Wyden and Neal can ask questions but cannot compel answers, TechCrunch noted.

Markets steadied but did not recover. Nvidia shares finished Thursday 4.3% lower, off the day's lows, Reuters reported; the Motley Fool's data put the close at $166.19, down 4.34%. They had been down as much as 14% earlier in the session, Sharecast reported. Rivals rose: AMD gained 5.9% and Broadcom 5.5%, while Alibaba fell 7.1% in U.S. trading, according to Reuters.

Limits of the November 13 update#

• The Democrats' letter makes allegations about the administration's decisions; the Commerce Department's and Nvidia's responses were not in the material we read.
• The briefing claims in the lawmakers' release rest on press reports, not on documents they have published.
• The 14% intraday fall is Sharecast's figure; a Reuters report published during the session gave 14.3%. Neither is a closing price.
• No date for Huang's testimony had been reported.

Updated November 12, 2026: Jensen Huang has resigned as Nvidia's chief executive, and chief financial officer Colette Kress is interim CEO. The new section directly below covers it; the November 11, November 10, November 9 and November 8 updates and the original report follow unchanged.

November 12: Huang resigns, and Nvidia's CFO takes over#

Nvidia's co-founder is out of the top job for the first time since 1993. The company's directors announced on Thursday, November 12 that Jensen Huang had resigned as president, chief executive officer and a member of the board, "effective immediately." In a regulatory filing, Nvidia said the board accepted the resignation on Wednesday, TechCrunch reported. Nvidia did not give a reason.

Colette Kress, executive vice president and chief financial officer since September 2013, is interim CEO and will remain CFO until a permanent successor is named, the company said. The board is searching for a permanent chief executive and "will consider internal and external candidates." It also named Harvey C. Jones, a former chief executive and executive chairman of Synopsys, as its first-ever chair; Jones has been on Nvidia's board since 1993, TechCrunch reported. Jones said the board expects operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap "to continue without interruption."

The resignation came a day after The New York Times reported, on November 11, that Huang had also had an extramarital relationship with an Nvidia vice president who reports to him, according to the paper's report republished by DNYUZ. The board met on Wednesday to discuss Huang's future, the Times reported, and began deliberating after the paper approached Nvidia about the second relationship. A source familiar with the matter told WIRED that the relationship with a subordinate, along with Huang's business dealings with Megaspeed, likely weighed more in the board's decision than the espionage allegations.

Nvidia shares were down more than 11% in premarket trading on Thursday, TechCrunch reported; The Washington Post put the fall at 9% in early trading. The stakes extend beyond the share price: as of the end of its second quarter, Nvidia reported $99 billion of investments, $25 billion of further commitments and $36 billion of cloud service commitments, TechCrunch noted. Washington's export-control questions have not gone away either, with Reuters reporting this week that a blacklisted Chinese defence university bought H200s through a local supplier.

Limits of the November 12 update#

• Nvidia's release gives no reason for the resignation and no terms, such as severance or any continuing role for Huang; WIRED's account of the board's reasoning rests on one unnamed source.
• A resignation is not a finding. The board has not said whether its investigation has concluded or what it found, and the spy allegations remain unproven; China denies them.
• The two share-price figures were taken at different times on Thursday; neither is a closing price.
• We read the Times' November 11 and 12 reporting through DNYUZ's republication, not on nytimes.com.

Updated November 11, 2026: Nvidia's board has named the lawyer running its investigation, the shares fell for a second day, and the chair of the House China committee has warned against "damage control". The new section directly below covers it; the November 10, November 9 and November 8 updates and the original report follow unchanged.

November 11: A former top prosecutor takes the board's probe#

The independent members of Nvidia's board said on Tuesday, November 10 that they had retained Joon H. Kim, former acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and his firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz "to conduct a thorough and independent investigation as was announced on Sunday," CNBC reported. CNBC described the inquiry as examining whether company secrets or national security were compromised; Kim joined Wachtell last month, it said, citing Law360. The BBC reported that the investigation will likely be treated as urgent, according to people familiar with the matter, and that it is unclear whether Wachtell will be able to interview Alice Huang. An Nvidia spokesperson declined to tell the BBC whether Jensen Huang has retained his own lawyers.

Nvidia shares closed down 5.47% on Tuesday, after falling more than 4% on Monday, and briefly dipped below a $4 trillion market value before closing above it, CNBC's markets desk reported. The BBC put the value lost since Friday at about $500 billion.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, told CNBC he wants to know whether Huang shared privileged information, whether he was influenced to lobby against limits on chip sales to China, and whether China got preference for Nvidia's limited supply of advanced chips. "If it becomes less of an investigation, more of damage control, that's not going to work because people have to have confidence," he said. Rep. Brian Mast said he had not heard an answer to the committees' November 5 request that Huang brief them. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, citing press reports, said on the Senate floor that Trump had been briefed more than a year ago and "didn't do anything" about it.

Limits of the November 11 update#

• CNBC's two reports differ on Tuesday's fall: its markets report gives a 5.47% close, its report on the probe says 6%. We use the closing figure.
• We read the board's statement as quoted by CNBC and the BBC; we did not load Nvidia's own release.
• Hiring outside counsel is not a finding. The board has not said when the probe will end or what it will publish.

Updated November 10, 2026: Shareholders have sued Nvidia and Jensen Huang, the shares fell on Monday, and President Trump said the FBI is investigating. The new section directly below covers it; the November 9 and November 8 updates and the original report follow unchanged.

November 10: A lawsuit, a share drop and an FBI inquiry#

The allegations now carry a price tag that a court can test. Nvidia and Huang were sued on Monday, November 9 in a proposed class action in federal court in San Jose, California, accusing them of defrauding shareholders by concealing Huang's ties with a suspected Chinese spy, Reuters reported. The complaint alleges they misled shareholders about Huang's alleged affair with Alice Huang and did not disclose that the matter raised national security concerns threatening Nvidia's reputation and business prospects. Shareholders led by Mark Kistenmacher are seeking unspecified damages. Nvidia did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.

Nvidia shares closed down 4.3% on Monday, cutting its market capitalisation by about $190 billion, according to Reuters; the suit was filed five minutes after the U.S. market closed. The drop came days after the November 5 Nasdaq selloff that Reuters says has also made lenders wary of more AI debt.

Trump said on Monday that the FBI was investigating the matter, DW reported, and said he had spoken to Huang earlier that day. "He said he had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy," Trump told reporters. That differs from the November 9 update below, in which Reuters reported Trump saying he had not spoken to Huang; the conversation he described took place on Monday.

Huang has pulled out of the ElevenLabs Summit in New York scheduled for Wednesday, November 11, ElevenLabs confirmed to TechCrunch, and has also dropped out of other speaking engagements including the Anthropic CEO Forum. Nvidia is an investor in ElevenLabs.

Limits of the November 10 update#

• A complaint is a set of allegations by plaintiffs; no court has ruled on it, and it is common for shareholders to sue after sharp price falls, as Reuters noted.
• The FBI inquiry is described by Trump; we did not see confirmation from the FBI or the Justice Department.
• Estimates of Monday's market-value loss vary between outlets; we use Reuters' figure.

Updated November 9, 2026: Nvidia's board has opened an independent investigation, and Jensen Huang has told staff he was unfaithful to his wife. The new section directly below covers it; the November 8 update and the original report follow unchanged.

November 9: Nvidia's board opens an investigation#

Nvidia's board said on Sunday, November 8 that it is "initiating an independent investigation in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort." A committee of independent directors, assisted by outside independent counsel, will oversee it. The board said it has "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised," that the inquiry "will examine all available information," and that it "has confidence in Jensen and his leadership team."

In an email to staff published by CNBC, Huang wrote: "I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children." He said he supports the investigation and will cooperate fully. His email does not name Alice Huang, and Reuters reported that he did not disclose details of the relationship. Nvidia told CNBC that Huang "is committed to continuing to lead NVIDIA as CEO without interruption."

NBC News reported late Sunday, citing a person familiar with the matter, that U.S. intelligence agencies had determined Alice Huang was a Chinese spy and had a relationship with Jensen Huang; the two are not related. China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Monday that "the so-called Chinese spy allegation is unsubstantiated."

Nvidia shares fell nearly 5% in U.S. premarket trading on Monday, extending the previous week's selloff, Reuters reported; that slide began with the October 30 rout in AI chip stocks. Huang's daughter Madison Huang, an Nvidia executive, cancelled a planned visit to Seoul, according to companies she had been due to meet. President Trump said he had not spoken to Huang about the allegations, Reuters reported, and said: "I think he's an honorable guy."

Limits of the November 9 update#

• The board's statement and Huang's email are primary; the claim that U.S. agencies determined Alice Huang was a spy still comes from unnamed sources, now including NBC's.
• An internal investigation is not a finding. The board has not said what it will publish or when.
• We did not see Nvidia's answer to the House committees' November 18 briefing request described below.

Updated November 8, 2026: The Times now reports that U.S. officials assessed Alice Huang was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security, and three House committee chairs have asked Jensen Huang to brief them on November 18. The new section directly below covers it; the original report follows unchanged.

November 8: an MSS assessment and a date with Congress#

The New York Times reported on November 6, citing people briefed on U.S. surveillance, that Alice Huang was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security to collect intelligence on Jensen Huang, as part of a drive to learn about American AI chips and potentially influence Nvidia to push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China. The Times says that assessment, that she worked directly for China's main intelligence agency, had not been reported before. A version of the report syndicated by The Business Times says the assessment was cited in a memo that circulated among top Trump administration policymakers last spring, and TechCrunch's November 7 write-up also describes the memo.

The Times also reports that Megaspeed has been building data centres in Southeast Asia and renting their computing power to Alibaba, and that Alice Huang has relationships with leaders at Gigabyte, a major assembler of Nvidia systems.

On November 5, House Foreign Affairs chair Brian Mast, Select Committee on China chair John Moolenaar and Intelligence Committee chair Rick Crawford asked Jensen Huang to appear for a joint closed-door briefing on his interactions with Alice Huang and on Nvidia's protections against foreign espionage. They asked for November 18 and for him to accept or propose another date by November 11.

Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo told the Times the company does not share classified information with its customers, and that customers do not ask Nvidia to press the U.S. government on China chip policy. China's embassy called the reporting "unsubstantiated" and "nothing but smears against China." Separately, the Times reported on November 7 that the Commerce Department cleared Chinese firms with empty offices to handle Nvidia H200s, a licensing question that sits alongside the 600,000 H200s Reuters says are stuck in Hong Kong.

Limits of the November 8 update#

• The MSS assessment and the memo are described by unnamed people; no U.S. agency has confirmed them publicly, and Alice Huang did not respond to the Times.
• We read the Times report through syndication (DNYUZ and The Business Times); nytimes.com did not load for us. The memo detail appears in the Business Times version and in TechCrunch.
• A briefing request is not a finding. We have not seen Nvidia's answer to the committees.

The original report#

The most striking claim in the Times's report is about the U.S. government, not Nvidia: if officials concluded that someone close to Jensen Huang was working for Chinese intelligence, the paper says they never told him. These are allegations from people the Times did not name, about classified material no outsider can check.

The New York Times reported on October 29, citing people briefed on classified surveillance, that U.S. officials concluded Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Chinese citizen and an executive at the server company Megaspeed, was a Chinese intelligence asset. According to the Times, the surveillance showed she had a close relationship with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, whose identity as a U.S. citizen was unmasked in the intelligence reporting.

What the Times reports#

The Times reports that President Trump was briefed on the findings about a year ago and did not act on them. It reports that Jensen Huang has not received a defensive briefing, the warning U.S. agencies can give people they believe are being targeted. At the initial briefing, officials did not believe he knew of her alleged role, according to the paper, and the surveillance is continuing.

The chip thread#

The report links the counter-intelligence case to an export-control one. The Times says Megaspeed affiliates kept buying Nvidia chips, and that a Megaspeed sister company in Malaysia bought at least $4.8 billion of equipment containing Nvidia chips between June 2024 and February 2026, citing ImportGenius trade data. It reports that the Commerce Department has been investigating Megaspeed since late 2024 and handed the case to the Justice Department this year, and that Singapore authorities questioned Alice Huang in 2025 and released her. Questions about where Nvidia's servers end up are not new: Taiwanese prosecutors in August indicted nine people over B300 exports to China.

The responses#

Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo told the Times that Huang's interactions were "not unusual or unexpected" because "Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year", and that customers receive "ordinary business information — not sensitive Nvidia trade secrets — and zero information relevant to national security." Nvidia also said it had previously investigated smuggling claims and found them to be false. Rizzo told the Times, and Nvidia said in a statement to Tom's Hardware, that the company is confident that if the U.S. government believes any person is a threat to American industry, "it would let us know."

Megaspeed told the Times it has retained outside counsel, opened an internal investigation and told the U.S. government it will cooperate. Liu Chang, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy, called the report "groundless smears and slanders." The White House, the CIA and the NSA declined to comment, and Alice Huang did not respond, the Times reports.

Limits#

• Every intelligence claim here comes from people the Times did not name, describing classified surveillance that Times of AI cannot review.
• The Times does not report that Jensen Huang shared secrets or knew of the alleged intelligence role, though it reports that some senior Trump administration officials doubt he could have remained unaware of it; Nvidia rejects any suggestion that sensitive information was passed.
• The $4.8 billion figure is the Times's reading of trade data, not a government finding. Megaspeed has not been charged with any offence in the material reviewed here.
• The Times article did not load for Times of AI; its full text was read as syndicated by Business Standard. Tom's Hardware is an independent check on Nvidia's response only, not on the intelligence findings.

Sources#

• Fortune: Senate Banking Committee asks Jensen Huang and Howard Lutnick to testify over 'significant national security concerns' next month, or face subpoenas (November 13, 2026)

• Axios: Bessent puts Megaspeed heat on Lutnick: "Commerce has the pen" (November 13, 2026)

• CNBC: Sec. Bessent: Commerce did not add Megaspeed to export control list (video, November 13, 2026)

• Reuters via HuffPost: White House discussing Howard Lutnick's future as Commerce secretary, people familiar say (November 12, 2026)

• Reuters via The Economic Times: US yet to determine if Alice Huang was Chinese spy, Trump, Blanche say; FBI investigation underway (November 13, 2026)

• Moneycontrol: Jensen Huang agrees to testify before US Congress ahead of Thanksgiving; hearing likely to be under oath (November 12, 2026)

• U.S. Senate Committee on Finance: Wyden and Neal Begin to Investigate Administration Scheme to Take Cut of Nvidia AI Chip Sales to Chinese Companies (November 12, 2026)

• TechCrunch: Democrats launch Nvidia investigation, write scathing letter on Huang's 'scheme' with Trump (November 12, 2026)

• Reuters via MarketScreener: Wall Street ends lower as Nvidia CEO resigns; US yields up (November 12, 2026)

• The Motley Fool: Stock Market Today, Nov. 12: Nvidia Shares Slide on Reports of CEO Jensen Huang's Resignation (November 12, 2026)

• Sharecast: US close: Stocks fall as Nvidia CEO scandal rattles tech sector (November 12, 2026)

• Reuters via Euronext: AI stocks pare losses as investors assess fallout of Nvidia CEO's exit (November 12, 2026)

• NVIDIA: NVIDIA Announces CEO Transition (November 12, 2026)

• TechCrunch: Nvidia's Jensen Huang resigns, chipmaker names CFO Colette Kress as interim CEO (November 12, 2026)

• WIRED: Jensen Huang Resigns as Nvidia CEO (November 12, 2026)

• The New York Times (via DNYUZ syndication): Nvidia's Board Is Weighing Jensen Huang's Future (November 12, 2026)

• The Washington Post: Jensen Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO after affair with alleged spy (November 12, 2026)

• CNBC: Nvidia hires law firm Wachtell Lipton to lead Jensen Huang affair probe (November 10, 2026)

• CNBC: Nvidia sells off for second day in fallout from Jensen Huang's affair with alleged spy (November 10, 2026)

• BBC: Nvidia hires major US law firm to investigate alleged Chinese spy affair (November 10, 2026)

• CNBC: Schumer accuses Trump of defending Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at cost of national security (November 10, 2026)

• Reuters via New York Post: Nvidia, CEO Jensen Huang hid affair to suspected Chinese spy, shareholder lawsuit says (November 9, 2026)

• DW: Nvidia shareholders sue Jensen Huang over alleged spy ties (November 10, 2026)

• TechCrunch: Jensen Huang pulls out of ElevenLabs Summit amid Nvidia controversy (November 9, 2026)

• The New York Times: report on U.S. intelligence, Megaspeed and Jensen Huang (October 29, 2026)

• Business Standard (New York Times syndication): US intelligence links Nvidia CEO contact to China spying concerns (October 29, 2026)

• Tom's Hardware: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang may have been the target of a spy plot through a Chinese intelligence asset, report claims (October 29, 2026)

• The New York Times (via DNYUZ syndication): China's Top Spy Agency Recruited Woman Who Targeted Jensen Huang (November 6, 2026)

• The Business Times (New York Times syndication): China recruited Singapore-based executive to spy on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: US intelligence (November 8, 2026)

• TechCrunch: Megaspeed exec was recruited to spy on Nvidia CEO, according to US intelligence memo (November 7, 2026)

• House Foreign Affairs Committee: Chairmen Mast, Moolenaar, and Crawford Request Jensen Huang Brief Congress (November 5, 2026)

• The New York Times (via DNYUZ syndication): U.S. Cleared Nvidia Chips to Chinese Firms With Empty Offices and Troubling Ties (November 7, 2026)

• Reuters via Investing.com: Exclusive-Nvidia chips pile up in Hong Kong as China withholds import approval (November 5, 2026)

• NVIDIA: Statement From NVIDIA Board of Directors (November 8, 2026)

• CNBC: Read Huang's email to his staff and statement from Nvidia's board (November 8, 2026)

• NBC News: Nvidia opens investigation after CEO Jensen Huang's affair with alleged Chinese spy (November 8, 2026; updated November 9)

• Reuters via Investing.com: Nvidia's shares slide as chip giant probes CEO over spy claims (November 9, 2026)