Treasury Secretary Bessent Points Finger at Nvidia Over GPU Leakage to China

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has publicly questioned whether Nvidia knowingly sold restricted AI GPUs to pass-through shell companies, and said anyone at the company found responsible should face consequences. "I think it is important that anyone at the company there be held accountable for that," Bessent said in an interview with CNBC.

His comments shift the frame of a story that has so far centered on Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang. Bessent argued the real question is not one man's conduct but the strength of Nvidia's customer checks.

What did Bessent actually say?

Bessent conceded that U.S. export controls cannot stop every restricted chip from reaching China or other adversaries. China has allegedly obtained millions of restricted AI GPUs from Nvidia despite the rules.

"I think that there is a lot of leakage in the system, and we are constantly working to close that down," he said. He then reframed the controversy: "The story has been thus far on Jensen Huang's personal foibles. 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?"

The takeaway in plain words: the Treasury Secretary suspects the smuggling problem may partly live inside Nvidia's own sales controls, not only in external networks.

Does Washington need tougher export rules?

Bessent does not think so. He said the United States does not need stricter export restrictions or new powers for government agencies to stop GPU smuggling. Instead, authorities should properly enforce the regulations already on the books.

That position matters commercially. It lowers the immediate risk of a fresh wave of licensing rules that could hit Nvidia's revenue further, while keeping enforcement pressure on existing cases.

Who inside Nvidia is under scrutiny?

Bessent singled out Nvidia's general counsel, Timothy Teter, who reportedly contacted the U.S. Department of Commerce to ask whether American authorities were behind the detention of Megaspeed's Alice Wong in Singapore.

"But let us just say, if this was happening, then there were not robust controls at the company," Bessent said. "We do not know for a fact that Jensen Huang knew this. The [general counsel] seems to have been very involved here, probably should have done more oversight rather than the haranguing [government officials at the U.S. DoC]."

Bessent declined to speculate about potential consequences for Nvidia if it turned out some of its executives knew their customers acted as intermediaries for Chinese entities. He did, however, express confidence that Nvidia's board of directors would conduct a thorough investigation. In short: no verdict yet, but the board is expected to deliver one.

Why was Megaspeed not blacklisted sooner?

Bessent also revealed a bureaucratic standoff behind the case. The Departments of the Treasury, War, and State, along with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, had supported adding Megaspeed to the Entity List for months.

The authority to impose such export restrictions belongs to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security. According to the report, BIS stalled the blacklisting effort for months because Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick feared the move could worsen trade tensions with China.

The practical result is that a company multiple agencies wanted restricted sat outside the Entity List while restricted hardware kept moving. How the BIS acts on Megaspeed, and what Nvidia's board investigation finds, will shape the next phase of accountability for one of the industry's most consequential supply chains.