US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has asked Nvidia to provide answers within 10 days about how the company controlled exports of artificial intelligence chips to China. He said the explanations should be provided by the manufacturer’s board of directors and external legal counsel.
“I think that over the next 10 days we need to get answers from the board and from the external counsel,” Bessent said in an interview with Fox News. According to him, Nvidia must determine whether it knew that some of its products may have reached Chinese buyers through intermediaries and companies with unclear end uses.
Washington Calls for Changes in Leadership
Bessent urged Nvidia’s board to look outside the company for its next chief executive officer. He said the manufacturer needed a “dramatic shake-up” following Jensen Huang’s departure.
Huang left the position in November, while Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress was appointed interim chief executive officer. Bessent did not name a specific candidate for the permanent position, but made it clear that he preferred someone who was not part of Nvidia’s existing management structure.
Dispute Is Linked to Exports to China
Pressure on Nvidia has intensified over questions about whether US artificial intelligence chips were being diverted to China despite US restrictions. Bessent raised the question of whether the company had sufficiently reliable procedures in place to identify the end recipients of its products.
The issue is also intertwined with a separate dispute within President Donald Trump’s administration. Earlier, Bessent accused the Commerce Department of delaying the addition of Singapore-based company Megaspeed to the list of companies subject to restrictions over national security concerns. According to Bessent, several US institutions had supported such a measure, but the decision was within the authority of the Commerce Department.
Nvidia is due to release its financial report on November 17. Meanwhile, the pressure is coming not only from the executive branch. US lawmakers have requested information from the company and from Huang, who has been invited to a closed-door interview in Congress on December 1. At this stage, no final public deadline has been announced for Nvidia to respond to Bessent’s request.
Sources: axios.com, apnews.com, cbsnews.com