Bessent Says Treasury Wanted Megaspeed Curbs for Months
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Commerce under Howard Lutnick held off for months on action against Megaspeed, the Singapore company at the center of the scandal that ousted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Bessent also called for accountability at Nvidia.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday, November 13, that Treasury wanted Megaspeed restricted for months, but the Commerce Department under Howard Lutnick did not act. Megaspeed is the Singapore company at the center of the alleged Chinese espionage scandal that ousted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
Bessent made the comments in a television interview. He said other agencies pushed for tougher action while Commerce held back.
"Commerce has the pen"
"Treasury, War, USTR and State were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months," Bessent said. The US had reportedly been examining whether Megaspeed helped send Nvidia's most advanced chips to China.
"But Commerce has the pen," he said. "And you will have to ask them about their internal processes."
A Commerce spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tensions inside the administration
The remarks are the latest public sign of friction inside the Trump administration over how it oversaw Nvidia. The scandal broke after revelations that Huang had an affair with a Megaspeed executive. That executive was reportedly suspected of being a Chinese spy.
Lutnick's handling of export controls on Nvidia has drawn bipartisan scrutiny in recent days. On Thursday, Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, summoned Lutnick and Huang to testify before his panel.
Bessent said he was dismayed by the delays in tightening limits on advanced chip exports. His deputy, he said, "had been pushing this for months" with counterparts at other agencies.
"We have all the authorities that we need," Bessent added. "They just need to be implemented."
Questions for Nvidia
Bessent said he was frustrated because President Donald Trump had made clear that China should not receive any Nvidia chips above H100s. Any leakage, he said, hurts American companies and gives China an advantage in the AI race.
He also said Nvidia itself needs to answer questions. "The real story here should be: Did Nvidia know their client?" Bessent said.
If Nvidia was "selling to what were obviously pass-through shell companies," he said, it is "important that anyone at the company there be held accountable for that."
Bessent said he expects Nvidia's board to investigate. "I am sure that the board, now having woken up to what's going on, is going to do a thorough investigation," he said.
