Nvidia scandal draws in Commerce Secretary Lutnick, who reportedly agrees to testify about China chip sales

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnik attends an announcement made by U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House on Sept. 28, 2026 in Washington, DC.

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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has agreed to testify before the Senate Banking Committee, as the fallout from ousted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's affair with an alleged Chinese spy intensifies.

Lutnick was summoned by Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott amid scrutiny over whether Nvidia could have supplied advanced artificial intelligence chips to Chinese companies and thereby potentially threatened U.S. national security.

Huang and Lutnick both received letters on Thursday evening requesting them to testify in separate hearings on Dec. 3 and Dec. 10, respectively. The letter to Lutnick asked the commerce secretary to testify regarding "recent public reports about NVIDIA and the Department of Commerce's role that raises national security concerns."

"Secretary Lutnick has proactively agreed to appear voluntarily before the Banking Committee to address their questions," Kristen Eichamer, a spokesperson for Lutnick, told NBC News on Thursday. CNBC contacted the Commerce Department for comment.

The letter to Huang said that reports about his relationship with the alleged Chinese spy "raise significant national security concerns."

Huang has acknowledged an affair with an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company that has bought over $4.8 billion of advanced Nvidia AI chips over the past two years. The scandal, in addition to reports of a separate affair with a senior executive at Nvidia, led to his resignation on Thursday.

There is growing bipartisan scrutiny of the Commerce Department Secretary's approach to chip policy and whether his department was doing enough to restrict the supply of AI chips to China. Lawmakers are also questioning whether the department was overseeing Nvidia's exports thoroughly enough

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