Lutnick will testify Dec. 10. The question: why Commerce never blacklisted Megaspeed

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has agreed to testify before the Senate Banking Committee on Dec. 10, a U.S. official told CBS News. The question he will face is simple to state and hard to answer. Why did his department, which writes and enforces U.S. chip export rules, never blacklist Megaspeed, a Singapore company that U.S. officials suspect of moving Nvidia's most advanced chips into China?

The pressure now comes from both parties and from inside the Cabinet. On Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that Treasury, the Pentagon, the U.S. trade representative and the State Department "were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the Entity List for months." Then he added: "Commerce has the pen." Questions about its process, he said, should go to Commerce.

Commerce rejects the picture of a department that looked away. A spokesperson told The New York Times that the idea that President Trump's relationship with former Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang chilled enforcement was "false and reckless." The department pointed to chip-smuggling cases worth billions of dollars, according to the Times report republished by The Philadelphia Inquirer. A White House official told Bloomberg that Trump "maintains complete confidence" in Lutnick.

Why Megaspeed is the center of the case#

Megaspeed is a Singapore company that bought more than $4.8 billion in Nvidia chips since June 2024, according to a Nov. 11 letter from Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons that cites press reports. One of its former executives is Alice Huang, whom U.S. intelligence reportedly concluded was an asset of China's Ministry of State Security. Jensen Huang, who is not related to her, admitted to an affair amid reports about their relationship. He resigned from Nvidia on Nov. 12. China has denied the spying allegations, and Megaspeed says it takes U.S. export compliance "extremely seriously," ABC News reported.$$

The Entity List is Commerce's main blacklist for trade. A listed company needs a U.S. license to receive controlled goods, and licenses for listed buyers are usually denied. Adding Megaspeed would have cut off its legal access to advanced chips. It is an administrative trade measure, not a finding that the company broke the law. We covered how the list works in our earlier story on the resignation demand Lutnick faces.

The warnings are not new. In October 2025, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton$ asked Lutnick to investigate Megaspeed, which he called a spin-off of a Chinese state-owned cloud company. His letter described near-empty offices in Malaysia and Singapore and a Malaysian data center where U.S. officials reportedly found controlled chips still in their boxes.

Commerce has stopped adding names to the blacklist#

The broader record shows a pause. Commerce has not added a company to the Entity List since Oct. 9, 2025, by Yahoo Finance's count. The Times called it the longest gap in 18 years. As the chart shows, the list grew by hundreds of names a year before the pause.

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366

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170

2025170

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Source: Yahoo Finance count, Nov. 10, 2026

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Year	Entities added
2024	366
2025	170
2026	0

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Part of that pause has a stated reason. In September 2025, Commerce adopted a rule that extended export limits to companies majority-owned by listed firms. The administration suspended it as part of a trade truce with China after Beijing cut rare-earth supplies, the Times reported. Yahoo Finance reports the suspension now runs to Jan. 10. That trade-off is a policy choice the administration can defend. It does not explain one listing that other agencies say they wanted for months.

What the reporting says happened inside the government#

The most detailed account comes from Axios, based on six unnamed people who were briefed on the talks. It reports that Trump approved action against suspected chip diversion three times in 2026: in May, in August and on Nov. 5, as summarized by Yahoo News.

According to Axios, the Nov. 5 meeting in the Situation Room brought Lutnick together with Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The group then went to the Oval Office. Lutnick warned that new controls "will start a trade war with China." Trump replied, "Let's get it done." Axios reports that Lutnick then said he would "develop some options and come back."

Commerce spokesperson Kristen Eichamer denied that Bessent confronted Lutnick. Other parts of the account have not been confirmed on the record. Readers should weigh it as reporting from unnamed sources, not a public finding.

Bloomberg adds a second thread. It reports that after Nvidia's general counsel called Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler in late summer 2025, staff at the Bureau of Industry and Security were limited in investigating Nvidia matters. A BIS spokesperson called concerns about Kessler's dealings "entirely unfounded" and said he "handled the situation impartially and with integrity," according to a New York Post report carried by Yahoo.

1. 2024Commerce opens a probe into Nvidia sales to Megaspeed, later moved to the Justice Department
2. 2025-10-09Last company added to the Entity List
3. 2025-10-13Cotton asks Lutnick to investigate Megaspeed
4. 2025-12-08Trump says H200 chips can go to approved Chinese buyers for a 25% cut
5. 2026-01-13Commerce opens case-by-case H200 licenses for China
6. 2026-03-24Banks and Warren ask Commerce to pause Nvidia licenses
7. 2026-05Classified memo on Alice Huang reaches Trump, Axios reports
8. 2026-11-05Trump backs Megaspeed action after Oval Office meeting, Axios reports
9. 2026-11-12Jensen Huang resigns from Nvidia
10. 2026-12-10Lutnick due before Senate Banking

Source: CBS News, Sen. Tom Cotton, BIS, Axios via Yahoo

Who is asking what#

Five sets of lawmakers are now pressing Commerce or Nvidia, most of them in the past two weeks. The Democratic letters ask for records and answers. The Republican pressure targets testimony and enforcement.

Who	Party	Main demand	Deadline
House Foreign Affairs Democrats	D	Halt AI chip exports to China; answer 9 questions	Dec. 1
Warren and Coons	D	Preserve records; brief Congress	Nov. 17
Wyden and Neal	D	Preserve records for a new probe	None set
Sen. Jim Banks$	R	Lutnick testimony	Dec. 10 hearing
Mast, Moolenaar, Crawford	R	Huang briefing or testimony	Before Thanksgiving

Source: letters from House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats, Warren and Coons and Wyden and Neal; Banks via CBS News; House chairs via Yahoo Finance.

The House Democrats' Nov. 9 letter asks whether Commerce leaders were briefed on the intelligence about Alice Huang. "If Commerce was not briefed, we need to know why," it says. It also asks about New Matrix, a Chinese licensee that the letter says shows little evidence of existing and whose owners reportedly have ties to a blacklisted fund.

Republican Jim Banks of Indiana, who sits on the Banking Committee, told Fox News that "Secretary Lutnick, it appears, used loopholes to allow some of these chip sales to occur" after Trump had directed otherwise. In March, Banks and Warren jointly asked Commerce to pause all active Nvidia licenses for China and Southeast Asia after a Supermicro indictment alleged that about $510 million in servers with restricted Nvidia chips went to China through shell firms.

Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Richard Neal are probing a different issue: the 25% charge on H200 chips bound for China, which their letter calls "what appears to be an unconstitutional export tax system." We explain that legal fight in a separate story.$$

Campaign money does not explain these positions on the available record. In 567politics' 2026-cycle snapshots of committee receipts from the Federal Election Commission, retrieved Nov. 11 for Wyden and Nov. 13 for Banks, no Nvidia PAC appears. The only chipmaker PAC in either list is Samsung Electronics America's, which gave Banks $5,500 and Wyden $8,000, according to Banks's and Wyden's FEC pages. These snapshots exclude individual donors and are not career totals.

The conflict-of-interest questions#

Democrats also point to Lutnick's past. Before he joined the Cabinet, he ran Cantor Fitzgerald, which held about $1.2 billion in Nvidia stock, CBS News reported. He transferred his business interests to his children, and his two eldest sons now run Cantor. Commerce says Lutnick fully divested and never discussed Nvidia with the firm. No record made public so far shows Lutnick acted on Nvidia matters for a personal financial benefit. Our earlier report on Lutnick's family firm and Tether questions covers that record in detail.

The access question is separate. The Times reports that Lutnick "frequently calls and messages with Huang." Huang has said Lutnick called him "a national treasure." Close contact between a regulator and the head of the largest company it regulates is not improper by itself. It does raise the question lawmakers say they will ask on Dec. 10: who decided Megaspeed's fate, and on what evidence.

What Lutnick promised, and what he says now#

Senators will likely read Lutnick's own words back to him. At his January 2025 confirmation hearing, he said of China, "We need to stop helping them," and, "I'm going to be very strong on that," according to the Times. CBS News reports he also said, "I take a very jaundiced view of China."

His case since then has been about trade-offs, not softness. The Times reports he told White House staff that new limits on remote access to U.S. chips, through data centers abroad, could set off a trade war with China, and that he needed more talks with Trump first. A BIS spokesperson said the agency is "actively considering new rules to address remote access with interagency partners." Commerce also notes that it put a license requirement on Nvidia's H20 chip in April 2025, which the Biden administration had not done. Read together, those statements make the department's defense: act carefully, weigh the risk that Beijing retaliates as it did with rare earths, and keep enforcing case by case.

What the hearing can settle#

The hearing can establish facts that unnamed sources cannot. Lawmakers can ask for the dates of each proposed Megaspeed listing, the legal advice behind each delay, and who signed off. They can ask whether Lutnick received the May intelligence memo. Lutnick can make his own case on the record, including whether listing Megaspeed risked a wider trade fight with Beijing.

Some things it cannot do. A hearing is not a trial. It cannot prove that Megaspeed diverted chips; the Justice Department investigation reported by Warren and Coons would do that. Until Commerce publishes its own timeline, the record rests on letters, unnamed sources and denials.

Differing perspectives

Did the Commerce Department under Howard Lutnick do enough to keep advanced Nvidia chips from reaching China through Megaspeed and other buyers?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Carry out the president's order and list Megaspeed

  Who holds it: Republican senators including Tom Cotton and Jim Banks; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other agency heads

  These Republicans support the president's China trade policy but argue Commerce failed to carry out his decisions. Cotton asked Commerce to investigate Megaspeed in October 2025, citing near-empty offices and controlled chips found in a Malaysian data center. Bessent says four agencies backed listing the company for months. They argue that closing diversion loopholes is a national security duty and that Commerce must explain the delay under oath.

  In their words: Office of Sen. Tom Cotton ↗

• Commerce acted carefully and lawfully

  Who holds it: The Commerce Department and its Bureau of Industry and Security, led by Lutnick and Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler

  Commerce argues that licensed, controlled H200 sales strengthen the American technology ecosystem and that it has kept enforcing the rules. It points to charges in several chip-smuggling cases worth billions of dollars and to its license requirement on Nvidia's H20 chip. It says claims that ties to Nvidia chilled enforcement are false, that consulting companies on draft rules is routine, and that new steps must be weighed against the risk of a trade war with China.

  In their words: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security ↗

• Halt China chip exports and investigate

  Who holds it: House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats; Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Chris Coons and Ron Wyden; Rep. Richard Neal

  These Democrats argue that Commerce should stop advanced AI chip exports to China until it explains its licensing decisions. They say it approved sales to Chinese firms with reported links to blacklisted companies or the military, including one with little evidence of existing. They want to know whether Commerce was briefed on intelligence about Megaspeed and argue that national security must come before corporate sales targets.

  In their words: House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats ↗

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