Megaspeed remains off U.S. blacklist as Bessent faults Commerce

By Nathan Brooks

Four Trump administration offices supported adding Singapore-based Nvidia customer Megaspeed to the U.S. Entity List for months, yet the company remained off the blacklist on Friday. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent identified them as Treasury, Defense, State and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

In a CNBC “Squawk Box” interview, according to Reuters, Bessent said Commerce administers the list and “has the pen.” He directed questions about Commerce’s internal procedures to the department.

The Entity List is the export blacklist that requires U.S. suppliers to obtain a license before shipping to a named company. In practical terms, the list works like a customs gate: naming a company adds a license step for U.S. shipments. Megaspeed was still not on it.

Why has Commerce not acted?

Friday’s comments followed an Axios report that Bessent confronted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the White House Situation Room over Megaspeed’s omission. Commerce spokeswoman Kristen Eichamer said on Wednesday that the two men had no such conversation.

Bessent declined to discuss the reported exchange and did not deny tension, according to Axios. His refusal to repeat Situation Room discussions left the central issue unresolved: four offices had supported the blacklist, but the administering department had not acted.

Reuters has reported that senior White House officials were discussing whether to push Lutnick out. A White House official said at the time that President Trump had complete confidence in him. Commerce did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CNBC or Reuters.

What is at stake in China access?

Bessent said President Trump had made clear that China should not receive any Nvidia chips above H100. He called leakage frustrating because it hurts major U.S. companies in the AI race and gives China an advantage.

Asked whether Congress needs to legislate, he said the administration has all the authorities it needs and only needs to implement them. The dispute therefore concerns implementation, not a lack of formal power.

What must Nvidia explain?

Asked whether Nvidia’s most advanced processors reached China with Megaspeed acting as a pass-through, Bessent said there was substantial leakage and that officials were constantly working to close it. He then shifted attention to Nvidia chief Jensen Huang.

Bessent said the public focus had remained on Huang’s personal conduct, then asked: “The real story here should be: Did Nvidia know their client, and was there a robust effort at Nvidia to make sure that there was no leakage and that they were selling to what were obviously pass-through shell companies?”

He said people at Nvidia should be held accountable for the answer. The question turns on customer diligence and sales controls: whether Nvidia knew Megaspeed’s customers and whether it stopped shipments to entities functioning as pass-through intermediaries.

Huang resigned as Nvidia’s chief executive on Thursday after admitting an affair with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive whom U.S. officials reportedly suspect of spying for China. On Friday, Bloomberg reported that Nvidia chips requiring U.S. export licenses had reached a Shanghai data center previously tied to Megaspeed.

No shipment count or revenue value accompanied the report, so the commercial scale of the alleged diversion remains unquantified. The episode instead tests the controls Nvidia applies when a customer routes chips through intermediaries.

What happens next?

Sen. Tim Scott said Thursday that Huang and Lutnick have both been asked to testify before the Senate Banking Committee next month. Huang has separately been asked to brief several House committees behind closed doors on Dec. 1.

Bessent’s account gives senators a focused question for Lutnick: why the blacklist backed by Treasury, Defense, State and the trade representative had not happened after months of support. Unless Commerce acts and Nvidia answers the customer-diligence question, licensed-chip leakage will continue to weigh on Nvidia’s China sales and the commercial effectiveness of U.S. export controls.