{"id":4382,"date":"2026-11-13T22:03:44","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T17:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4382"},"modified":"2026-11-13T22:03:44","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T17:03:44","slug":"us-treasury-chief-blames-commerce-dept-for-failure-in-nvidia-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=4382","title":{"rendered":"US Treasury chief blames Commerce Dept for failure in Nvidia scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday blamed the Commerce Department for failing to blacklist Megaspeed, the Singapore company at the centre of a scandal that prompted Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang to resign.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking on CNBC,<\/em> Bessent said Treasury, the Defence Department, the US Trade Representative\u2019s office and the State Department had backed adding Megaspeed to Washington\u2019s trade blacklist, \u201cfor months.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Commerce has the pen,\u201d Bessent said. \u201cYou will have to ask them about their internal processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he was \u201cfrustrated\u201d because President Donald Trump \u201cmade it very clear that China should not receive any Nvidia chips above H100s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAny leakage is very frustrating because it hurts our great companies, and in the AI race gives the Chinese an advantage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The remarks are a rare public rebuke of one cabinet department by another. Commerce is led by Secretary Howard Lutnick.<\/p>\n

Megaspeed is suspected of helping Chinese firms get around US export controls by buying Nvidia chips for its data centres in Southeast Asia and routing them to China.<\/p>\n

The company reportedly traded more than $4 billion worth of Nvidia chips over two years.<\/p>\n

Its former director Alice Huang was this week identified in US media as an alleged Chinese intelligence asset who had a relationship with Jensen Huang. The two are not related. Beijing has denied the spying allegations.<\/p>\n

Jensen Huang acknowledged an extramarital affair in a November 8 letter to Nvidia employees that did not name the woman involved and resigned his position on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Nvidia\u2019s board has said it will investigate, and three US Congress committee chairs have asked him to attend a closed-door briefing on November 18.<\/p>\n

Bessent said coverage of the affair had focused too much on Huang\u2019s private life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe story thus far has been on Jensen Huang\u2019s personal foibles,\u201d he said. \u201cThe 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

He questioned whether Nvidia had been selling to \u201cwhat were obviously pass-through shell companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important that anyone at the company there be held accountable for that,\u201d Bessent said.<\/p>\n

He said there was \u201ca lot of leakage in the system\u201d and that the administration was \u201cconstantly working to close that down.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday blamed the Commerce Department for failing to blacklist Megaspeed, the Singapore company at the centre of a scandal that prompted Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang to resign. Speaking on CNBC, Bessent said Treasury, the Defence Department, the US Trade Representative\u2019s office and the State Department had backed adding Megaspeed to Washington\u2019s trade blacklist, \u201cfor months.\u201d \u201cBut Commerce has the pen,\u201d Bessent said. \u201cYou will have to ask them about their internal processes.\u201d He said he was \u201cfrustrated\u201d because President Donald Trump \u201cmade it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}