Congress demands answers over Nvidia espionage allegations and Jensen Huang scandal

The removal of Jensen Huang as CEO of Nvidia, the company he led for 33 years, taking it to the top of Wall Street, has sent shockwaves through the global tech industry. Nvidia is the company that supplies 90% of the chips used in data centre servers, where the most sophisticated AI models are trained. The scandal has emerged amid a race between the world’s major powers to gain supremacy in a technology set to transform the world as we know it.Huang’s affair with a businesswoman who reportedly worked for the Chinese government, together with his close ties to both Beijing and U.S. President Donald Trump, has set off alarm bells in Washington and raised questions about the company’s role in activities sensitive to national security. In an effort to get answers, lawmakers from both parties are rushing to demand explanations from the U.S. president and from Huang over the espionage allegations hanging over Nvidia. As Huang’s image takes a hit, he is coming under growing political scrutiny.Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota, who leads the Republican majority in the Senate, acknowledged that Congress would have to investigate Jensen Huang’s relationship with an alleged Chinese spy. “It would make sense because of the nature of the association,” he said.Several Republican members of the House of Representatives said on Thursday that they were in talks to have Jensen Huang testify before Congress in the coming days, in a hearing that is likely to be held behind closed doors. Republican Congressman Brian Mast of Florida, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and his Republican colleague John Moolenaar of Michigan, who chairs another House committee focused on China, acknowledged that they were working to set a date for Huang’s appearance.Mast, who has called for tighter controls on the sale of chips to other countries, said that he was preparing a subpoena to compel the former Nvidia executive to testify before his committee. “Jensen and I have been very at odds, as some of you already know, but Nvidia is a very important company to the United States of America,” he said on Capitol Hill. “I don’t want to see anything hurt Nvidia, but he has some very serious questions to answer.”Meanwhile, two Democratic senators, Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts and Chris Coons from Delaware, called on the White House to preserve all documents relating to Nvidia. Trump’s close relationship with Jensen Huang has raised considerable suspicion.The Republican president made Nvidia’s founder his chief adviser on artificial intelligence. He frequently invited him to the White House for briefings and state dinners. He also invited Huang to accompany him to the summit held in South Korea last autumn, where Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Last May, Huang accompanied the president on an official visit to China, and a couple of months ago he was among the guests of honor at a White House reception hosted by Trump in honor of Xi Jinping.Throughout this period, Huang used his close ties to Trump to pressure him to ease restrictions on exports of U.S. technology to China and allow Nvidia to sell more advanced microprocessors to Chinese companies. His argument was that otherwise Beijing would develop its own national champions and no longer depend on the United States for its technology, as it does now.During this same period, Trump was briefed at least twice about a Chinese spy’s relationship with the senior Nvidia executive. But when asked about it during an impromptu press appearance last Monday, he said he didn’t remember and hadn’t paid attention, while arguing that Jensen Huang “is an honorable guy.”Despite Jensen Huang’s resignation, Congress must demand answers from Mr. Huang and others at Nvidia about how they may have put U.S. national security at risk. The Trump administration must also answer for what it did once it learned about Mr. Huang’s relationship with a…— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) November 12, 2026 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a social media post that Congress must “demand answers” from Huang and Nvidia officials about “how they may have put U.S. national security at risk.” He added that the Trump administration “must answer for what it did once it learned about Mr. Huang’s relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence asset.” In a post on X, he wrote: “Were government officials told not to investigate because of Trump’s relationship with Mr. Huang? What did Trump know when he personally invited Mr. Huang aboard Air Force One?”Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Huang’s resignation was not enough to allay concerns about the potential threat. “Now we have to get to the bottom of whether America’s national security has been compromised,” he said.Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said that Jensen Huang’s resignation “does not absolve him, other executives or the company as a whole of responsibility for putting our national security at risk or for any possible violations of our laws.”Jensen Huang’s decision to resign from NVIDIA does not absolve him, other executives, or the company as a whole of responsibility for putting our national security at risk or for any potential violations of our laws. They still owe Congress answers.— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) November 12, 2026 In a statement, she said that both the Trump administration and Huang “still owe Congress answers.” She called on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his deputy, Jeffrey Kessler, to provide further explanations. “[They] must explain why they have not closed export control loopholes and act today to ensure our advanced technology is not fueling China’s military,” she stressed.Calls are growing for Lutnick, one of Trump’s closest allies, to resign over his stance on the U.S. trade blacklist. Lutnick had refused to add a dozen Chinese companies to the list of firms barred from doing business in the United States.On Thursday, Republican Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina sent letters to both Huang and Lutnick urging them to testify before the Senate. “Recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive U.S. technology,” Scott wrote in a social media post, adding: “The American people deserve answers.”Recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive U.S. technology.I am requesting that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testify before the Senate Banking Committee.The American people deserve… pic.twitter.com/Xu1kiNzkhW— Senator Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) November 13, 2026 Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and fellow party member Richard Neal, a congressman from Massachusetts, sent Lutnick a letter on Thursday informing him that they were investigating the approval of sales of Nvidia’s advanced AI chips to Chinese companies “with concerning links to the Chinese government, military and sanctioned entities.”Huang’s ouster has enormous significance for the global corporate world. The scandal is set to go down as one of the biggest corporate debacles in history, triggered by revelations that an executive had multiple affairs. Huang turned Nvidia into the company around which the entire AI universe revolves. It holds a near-monopoly on the manufacture and distribution of the most advanced semiconductors used to develop the new autonomous technology. But he also promoted cross-financing deals with customers and suppliers, weaving a complex and dangerous web of shared interests. This strategy helped fuel the dizzying boom in AI.Moolenaar, Mast and another Republican, Rick Crawford, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, had already requested a meeting with Huang after the alleged plot linking him to a suspected Chinese spy named Alice Huang came to light. Revelations about Huang’s reckless behavior have increased pressure on lawmakers on Capitol Hill to tighten controls on chip exports to China through an amendment to a defense bill that Republicans are advancing in Congress.Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, is a Chinese-born businesswoman who runs a company called Megaspeed, based in Singapore. Although married, she used her close relationship with Huang to turn her company, which grew out of a Chinese video game business, into one of Nvidia’s biggest customers in Asia. U.S. officials have been monitoring the company for more than a year amid suspicions that it may be a key part of a network smuggling Nvidia’s most advanced semiconductors into China.Beyond Moolenaar and Mast’s requests, the espionage scandal involving Huang and his close relationship with Trump have prompted several bipartisan demands for information on Capitol Hill. Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota was among the most forceful. On Tuesday, before it emerged that Huang had had two other mistresses, Cramer, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees U.S. export control programs, called for Huang’s resignation.Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating the espionage case involving Huang, according to Trump, who revealed the probe this week. And the Justice Department is looking into whether other companies linked to Alice Huang were involved in attempts to smuggle products made by chipmaker Super Micro Computer (SMC) into China.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition