The Jensen Huang affair moved this week from Wall Street to Capitol Hill. Today, November 11, is the deadline three House committee chairs, Brian Mast, John Moolenaar and Rick Crawford, gave the Nvidia CEO to explain his relationship with Alice Huang, a former senior figure at Singapore's Megaspeed, and the company's safeguards against espionage. They proposed a closed-door briefing on the 18th. Mast, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told ABC he is prepared to issue a subpoena if Huang does not appear.
Democrats are joining in too. Representative Jim Himes, expected to chair the Intelligence Committee, said Huang had been asked to appear, and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer accused President Trump of defending Huang at the expense of national security. And according to a report by the ANI news agency, Republican Senator Kevin Cramer, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, called on Huang to resign. This as the president continues to defend Huang, calling him 'an honorable guy.'
Behind the political pressure are Megaspeed's numbers. According to The New York Times, trade records show the company received at least $4.8 billion of advanced AI equipment containing Nvidia technology between June 2024 and February 2026. The question investigators are trying to answer is how much of that equipment stayed in Southeast Asia, and how much went on to China. Megaspeed denies transferring chips to China, and Nvidia says the allegations were investigated and 'debunked' in the past.
And the affair is already changing the agenda. Lawmakers from both parties are using it to push tighter export restrictions on AI chips, including a requirement to track chips after sale. Nvidia fought such restrictions for years, arguing they hurt American industry and push China to develop its own chips. Now, with its CEO at the center of an espionage affair, that argument is much harder to make.
Nvidia shares fell yesterday for a second straight day, with hotter-than-expected inflation data also weighing on the market. Next week the company is expected to report quarterly results. Until then, every day without clear answers from the board increases the chance the questions get answered somewhere else: in Congress, at the Justice Department or in the press.
