US Democrats Open Nvidia Chip Probe After Jensen Huang Is Ousted as CEO
Democrats in the US Congress have opened an inquiry into how the Trump administration handled Nvidia's chip sales to China. It came the same day the company removed its CEO, Jensen Huang.
Democratic lawmakers in the US Congress on Thursday launched an inquiry into how President Donald Trump's administration handled sales of chips by Nvidia, the semiconductor maker, to China. The same day, the company ousted its founder and CEO, Jensen Huang. The probe matters because it targets not only the company but also the administration and the export licenses it issued.
Huang lost his post after confessing to an extramarital affair. Reports said he had a relationship with a woman accused of being a Chinese spy, and he has since been accused of further affairs with Nvidia employees. The woman, Alice Huang, was an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia customer that US officials suspect of helping route advanced Nvidia chips into China.
Letter to the Commerce Secretary
The inquiry was started by Rep. Richard Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. As the minority party, they can ask questions but cannot compel answers. In a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, they ask the department to preserve records about an arrangement they consider questionable and, they allege, illegal.
The letter describes Trump agreeing to sales of Nvidia's H200 chips to China provided the chips, made in Taiwan, were first shipped to the United States. There a tariff was added, which the letter says amounts to taking a cut of Nvidia's China sales through what appears to be an unconstitutional export tax system. The Commerce Department then issued an export license. In August 2025, Nvidia and AMD had both agreed to share 15% of their China chip revenue with the US government to secure export licenses.
The letter also asks why Lutnick kept allowing Megaspeed to buy chips after he was reportedly briefed by US intelligence on their suspicions. It further notes that the department reportedly approved other Asian companies to buy chips with no physical presence at their listed addresses. It says the export deal was approved after Trump learned of Huang's compromised position and after Nvidia donated $26 million to Trump's projects, including the ballroom.
A second investigation
This is the second congressional investigation since the alleged spy affair came to light. A Republican-led group of leaders from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Intelligence Committee demanded that Huang testify in a closed-door session and threatened a subpoena. After his resignation on Thursday, he agreed to do so.
