Treasury’s Scott Bessent said Commerce controls whether Megaspeed is blacklisted. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has agreed to testify.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday that Treasury, the War Department, the U.S. Trade Representative and the State Department had supported putting Megaspeed on the Commerce Department’s Entity List for months. Speaking on CNBC, he said “Commerce has the pen” and that questions about its internal process should go to that department.
Megaspeed is a Singapore-based company at the center of the espionage scandal that led to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s resignation. The U.S. government suspects it of buying Nvidia chips for data centers in Southeast Asia and routing them to China, and it reportedly traded more than $4 billion in Nvidia chips over two years. The Entity List is the Commerce Department’s roster of firms facing tight restrictions on receiving sensitive American technology.
Axios reported that Bessent pressed Lutnick at a White House Situation Room meeting after the midterm elections on why Megaspeed had not been added, and that Lutnick replied he would look into it. A Commerce Department spokeswoman told CNBC on Wednesday that the two had “no such conversation.”
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Commerce Undersecretary Kessler abruptly stopped an investigation into Megaspeed after Nvidia intervened. The department has added no businesses to the Entity List since October 2025. Bessent also questioned whether Nvidia made a robust effort to prevent chip “leakage” to pass-through shell companies.
Huang acknowledged an affair with a Megaspeed executive, and Nvidia’s board opened an independent review. Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott asked Lutnick and Huang on Thursday to testify early next month. Lutnick has agreed to testify before the committee
This report draws on CNBC, Axios, Yahoo News and American News Now