Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is under fire from critics who question whether his ties to Chinese companies and his friendship with ousted Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang contributed to the federal agency’s lack of oversight over billions in sales of Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips, CBS has learned. Before President Trump nominated Lutnick to lead the Commerce Department, Lutnick was president and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a New York investment bank that at the time owned about $1.2 billion in Nvidia stock. Lutnick developed a warm relationship with Huang, who resigned on Thursday as reports of a growing number of affairs caused new uncertainty about the world’s dominant AI chip maker. One of Huang’s alleged relationships was with Alice Huang (no relation to Jensen Huang), who the United States believes is a Chinese spy. He ran Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based company that became one of Nvidia’s largest AI chip customers and is suspected of illegally shipping Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips to Chinese entities, circumventing a US ban. As Commerce Secretary, Lutnick took command of an agency responsible for policing exports of sensitive technology to global adversaries and rivals. One way the Commerce Department keeps this information and technology out of the hands of China and other adversaries is to include foreign companies and individuals on its Entity List. This restricts its ability to access US technology products, and listing means that the department believes there is a risk that the entity is involved in activities that are contrary to US national security or foreign policy interests. In 2024, under the Biden administration, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security launched an investigation into Nvidia’s chip sales to Megaspeed to determine whether they were being redirected to China. But according to The New York Times, the investigation was abruptly transferred to the Department of Justice. The Justice Department declined to comment on the investigation. The Commerce Department has not added a company to the Entity List since October 2025. Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Lutnick over the Commerce Department’s failure to place Megaspeed on the Entity List, Axios reported. Chris McGuire, an expert on China and emerging technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said: “The real scandal here is the lack of enforcement of export controls.” He added that the Commerce Department had known for a year that Megaspeed was run by a woman the United States believes is a Chinese spy, “and they did nothing.” The New York Times reported that about a year ago, President Trump was briefed on intelligence suggesting Alice Huang was a Chinese asset and had become close to Jensen Huang. “Either Lutnick doesn’t know how to do his job or he’s protecting Huang,” McGuire said. The Commerce Department did not respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, after Jensen Huang’s resignation became public, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, asked Lutnick and his deputy, Jeffrey Kessler, to “explain why they have not closed the export control loopholes.” Kessler is the undersecretary who led the Commerce Department’s investigation into Megaspeed. Warren urged the two to “act today to ensure our advanced technology is not fueling China’s military.” In March, Warren wrote to Lutnick to demand an “immediate pause” on all export licenses for Nvidia chips destined for China. Questions about Lutnick’s own relationship with Chinese state-owned companies have further complicated Nvidia’s current crisis. A financial services company run by Lutnick, BGC Group, had a 33% stake in a joint venture with China Credit Trust, a Chinese state-owned company whose largest shareholder is China People’s Insurance Company, another state-owned company. Ran, Cantor Fitzgerald, is still supervised by his two oldest children. That company helped several Chinese companies go public in the United States. Cantor Fitzgerald was also a key investor in Satellogic, a satellite company that is contracted with a Chinese data science company, Zhong Ke Guang Qi Space, through 2033. His close ties to China emerged as a topic at his Senate confirmation hearing last year. Senators questioned whether Chinese officials could improperly influence him and how he would safeguard American technology. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, questioned Lutnick about potential conflicts of interest regarding his investments in Chinese companies and Cantor Fitzgerald’s financial interest in Tether, a cryptocurrency company with a large presence in China. Other senators asked how he would protect American technology from the Chinese Communist Party. “How will you address the different threats that we see coming from the CCP within these information and technology markets?” asked Republican Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska. Lutnick vowed to be vigilant against threats from China. “I have a very critical view of China,” he said in response to Fischer. “I think they only care about themselves and are looking to harm us, so we need to protect ourselves.” Before being sworn in as Commerce Secretary in February 2025, Lutnick resigned from all of his corporate leadership positions and transferred his business empire to his children. Since his tenure as Commerce Secretary began, Lutnick and his family’s net worth has doubled to $7.3 billion, thanks to his indirect stake in Tether, according to Forbes, which valued his stake in Tether at $5.4 billion. The stake, valued at $1.7 billion in early 2025, has more than tripled in value. “Can we be sure that he is looking out for the public interest?” asked Kathleen Clark, a law professor and government ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis. “What’s happening with him raises a lot of red flags.” Lutnick’s friendship with Jensen Huang may also be problematic, Clark told CBS News. Huang met Lutnick shortly after Lutnick began his tenure as commerce secretary, Huang told podcaster Joe Rogan last year. “He started our conversation by saying, ‘Jensen, this is Secretary Lutnick,'” Huang said. “‘I just want you to know that you are a national treasure. Nvidia is a national treasure. And whenever you need access to the president, to the administration, call us.'” Huang added that whenever he called the commerce secretary’s office, “if I want to get something off my chest, express some concern, they are always available.” Huang also visited President Trump. He attended a $1 million per person dinner at Mar-a-Lago in April 2025. At the time, Huang tried to convince Trump to lift restrictions on sales of the company’s less advanced H20 chips to China, according to The New York Times. Less than three months later, in July 2025, Trump lifted the restrictions. Nvidia’s most advanced chip, the Blackwell, cannot yet be sold directly to China. In July 2025, Lutnick posted a photo on Instagram showing Huang in his signature black leather jacket standing in the Oval Office next to Trump, who was sitting at his desk. Lutnick is also pictured along with other visitors. “It’s great to meet in the Oval Office with Jensen Huang on the same day Nvidia surpassed $4 trillion in market cap,” the post said. AI: Artificial Intelligence Go Deeper with The Free Press In:
