Democrats on Thursday opened an inquiry into how the Trump administration dealt with Nvidia’s chip gross sales to China. Earlier on Thursday, the corporate ousted its CEO Jensen Huang. He additionally agreed to testify to a special set of Republican-led Congressional committees.
Huang was faraway from the corporate he based after he confessed to an extramarital affair with a girl accused of being a Chinese language spy. (He has since been accused of getting more affairs, with Nvidia staff.)
The alleged Chinese language spy, Alice Huang, was an government of Nvidia buyer Megaspeed, a Singapore-based firm that U.S. officers suspect of serving to route superior Nvidia chips into China. The Democratic inquiry comes from Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the highest Democrat on the Home Methods and Means Committee, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the highest Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. Because the minority occasion, they will ask questions however can’t compel solutions.
Their humdinger of a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick asks the division to protect information about an association they discover questionable and, they allege, unlawful.
“The scheme labored like this,” because the letter describes it. President Trump agreed to gross sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China so long as the chips, manufactured by Taiwan, have been first shipped to the US. On arriving, Trump added a tariff “successfully taking a reduce of Nvidia’s gross sales to China via what seems to be an unconstitutional export tax system,” the letter stated. Then the Commerce Division, underneath Lutnick, issued an export license.
By the way in which, the deal between Trump and Nvidia to share income was public. In August 2025, Nvidia and AMD each agreed to share 15% of their income from chip gross sales to China with the U.S. authorities as a part of a deal to safe export licenses, the AP reported at the time.
However the letter questions why Lutnick continued to permit Megaspeed to purchase chips even after he was reportedly knowledgeable by U.S. intelligence of their suspicions of Alice Huang and of Jensen Huang’s relationship along with her. It questions why the division reportedly green-lit different Asian firms to purchase Nvidia chips “with no bodily presence at their listed addresses.” So the inquiry is aimed on the administration, not simply at Nvidia and Huang.
The letter additionally questions how Nvidia’s donations to Trump’s initiatives factored in. It notes that the export deal was accepted after Trump realized of “Mr. Huang’s compromised place” in sleeping with an alleged spy, and after Nvidia donated $26 million towards Trump’s initiatives, together with the ballroom. It seems to be asking if Trump used his information of the affair to safe donations from Nvidia.
Apparently, in a “60 Minutes” interview with President Trump that aired on Sunday, Trump talked about how he and his crew had threatened an unnamed AI exec with jail, and after that, the exec “completely modified.”
This Congressional investigation into Nvidia’s China gross sales and its dealings with Trump is the second, to date, since information of the alleged spy affair broke. The Republican-led group entails leaders from the Home Choose Committee on the Chinese language Communist Celebration, the Home Committee on Overseas Affairs, and the Home Intelligence Committee. That group has demanded that Huang come to them and testify in a closed-door session. That they had threatened to subpoena him if he didn’t voluntarily agree. On Thursday, after his resignation, he agreed.
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