Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick received a sensitive warning about Nvidia’s CEO before his agency signed off on chip sales tied to China.
Lutnick was sent a highly classified memo detailing Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, a woman U.S. intelligence officials suspect of spying for China, Axios reported Tuesday, citing multiple people familiar with the matter.
The disclosure puts a spotlight on Lutnick’s department, which is responsible for keeping sensitive American technology away from foreign adversaries. It also raises fresh questions about how Commerce weighed the security risks while approving sales of Nvidia’s advanced chips to entities connected to China.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio oversaw the drafting of the memo, according to The New York Times. The document relied on surveillance of Alice Huang and on a chip-smuggling probe targeting her company, Megaspeed, and it circulated ahead of President Donald Trump’s mid-May trip to China. Megaspeed bought billions of dollars’ worth of Nvidia chips, according to multiple outlets.
Rubio also personally warned Trump aboard Air Force One ahead of a refueling stop in Anchorage, where Jensen Huang joined the delegation despite not being on the original guest list, the Times reported Tuesday.
On May 14, Reuters reported that Commerce had approved roughly 10 Chinese companies to buy Nvidia’s H200 chips. Some approvals came before the warning. Nvidia disclosed an H200 export license in February, and Jensen Huang told Axios in March that the company held licenses covering Chinese customers. It remains unclear how many of those approvals became actual sales, since Beijing has paused some chip purchases.
Trump said Monday that intelligence officials may have shown him the warning, but he claimed not to remember it. “Certainly, it didn’t make much of an impact on me,” he said.
Commerce did not comment to Axios.
Jensen Huang admitted to the affair Sunday, and Nvidia’s board launched an independent investigation while standing behind him and saying it saw no reason to believe national security secrets had been compromised. The company has shed about $1 trillion in market value since the Times first reported the relationship, though post-midterm jitters also played a part.
Lawmakers from both parties have vowed to investigate and are seeking closed-door testimony from Jensen Huang next week. Top Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee have also pressed Lutnick to explain the administration’s chip approvals, including sales to companies with troubling ties to China.
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