U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bosworth stated that it was not his responsibility for the Trump administration not to take action against the companies at the center of the NVIDIA scandal.
“The Ministry of Commerce is in charge,” Bessent said during an interview with CNBC on Friday morning, and added, “You’ll have to ask about their internal procedures.”
Bessent's notable remarks have actually brought Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his department to the forefront. Previously, Axios reported that Bessent questioned Lutnick at a meeting in the war room about why the Ministry of Commerce had not included the Singapore-based cloud computing company Megaspeed on the "Entity List" – which is a trade blacklist managed by Lutnick's department.
Bessent said that he would not comment on what happened in the war room, but he also did not deny this report. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for a comment.
The New York Times reported that Alice Huang was once one of the senior executives at Megaspeed, and American officials suspect her to be a Chinese intelligence asset. The New York Times also reported that Alice Huang had an extramarital affair with Jensen Huang, who was then the CEO of NVIDIA. Jensen Huang apologized for the affair in a memo to employees on Sunday, but did not mention Alice Huang or the espionage allegations. NVIDIA's board of directors announced on Thursday that Jensen Huang has resigned. The Chinese side has repeatedly denied that Huang is a spy.
Megaspeed is a partner of NVIDIA and is currently under investigation regarding whether its data centers have assisted Chinese customers in obtaining advanced NVIDIA chips despite U.S. export restrictions. Bessent stated that his department and his deputies have been "pushing for action against Megaspeed for months."
Bessent stated, 'There are many leaks in the system,' and the chips obtained by Chinese companies are even superior to NVIDIA's H-100.
President Trump has clearly stated that China should not obtain any NVIDIA chips beyond the quantity of H100S. Therefore, any leakage is very disheartening as it harms the interests of our great company in the AI competition and also gives China an advantage, he said.
As for the founder of NVIDIA, Jensen Huang, Bertrand stated that the focus should not be on the reported extramarital affair, but rather on how NVIDIA's advanced chips can enter the Chinese market.
“So far, the focus of the story has been on Jensen Huang’s personal misconduct,” Basset said, “But the real question is, did NVIDIA know who their customers were?”
Bessent's remarks indicate that Jensen Huang's departure is far from putting an end to NVIDIA's controversies.
"Has NVIDIA made sufficient efforts internally to ensure that there were no leaks, and that they did not sell to customers who are clearly just shell companies?" said Bessent, "I believe that any relevant personnel within the company should take responsibility for this."
