House Leaders Threaten Ousted Nvidia Chief Jensen Huang With Subpoenas If He Does Not Appear for Testimony

The chairmen of three powerful House committees are threatening the founder and former chief executive of the chipmaking giant Nvidia, Jensen Huang, with subpoenas if he does not voluntarily come in to testify behind closed doors in December. Mr. Huang and the secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick, are facing scrutiny from lawmakers amid concerns that Mr. Huang could have been compromised after having an affair with an alleged agent of the People’s Republic of China. Mr. Huang founded Nvidia more than 30 years ago in order to develop chips that would help improve video game graphics, though in the last ten years, he has become one of the most important figures in the AI industry — if not the most — as the chips became critical to AI development. Nvidia would eventually become the world’s most valuable company before Mr. Huang resigned in disgrace on Thursday after it was reported that he had had an affair with a subordinate executive at his company. That story followed a New York Times report last month that detailed Mr. Huang’s affair with a Chinese woman employed at a Singapore-based tech firm who is believed to be a Chinese spy. China’s embassy at Washington, D.C., refuted the accusation that the woman, Alice Huang — no relation to Mr. Huang — is an agent of its government, according to the Times. The report on Mr. Huang’s relationship with Ms. Huang came on the back off a 2025 report from the Times which investigated whether or not Ms. Huang’s employer, Megaspeed, had been helping the Chinese government avoid American export controls in order to gain access to advanced Nvidia chips. On Thursday night, the chairmen of the committees on House Foreign Affairs, House Intelligence, and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party — Congressmen Brian Mast, Rick Crawford, and John Moolenaar, respectively — invited Mr. Huang to testify privately about his relationship with Ms. Huang. The chairmen are asking Mr. Huang to respond to their invitation by the end of the day on Friday. If Mr. Huang does not respond to the invitation to testify on December 1, then the chairmen say that the Foreign Affairs Committee will be “issuing a subpoena to compel your testimony in a format of the committee’s choosing.”“Other committees also reserve the right to separately issue subpoenas to compel your testimony,” the chairmen wrote. The desire to scrutinize Mr. Huang, his relationship with Ms. Huang, and potential violations of American export control laws is a bipartisan one. On Thursday, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who is due to become chairman of an investigative Senate subcommittee in January, told The New York Sun that he is ready to start sending out subpoenas, if necessary. He says it is especially concerning that President Trump chose not to do anything after reportedly receiving intelligence reports about Mr. Huang’s affair and his mistress’s ties to the Chinese government. Mr. Blumenthal argued that it may have something to do with Nvidia’s $25 million donation to Mr. Trump’s ballroom project. “Nvidia epitomizes the potential corruption that undermined our national security,” Mr. Blumenthal told the Sun in an interview on Thursday. “I am very much hoping that members of the cabinet who may have knowledge will cooperate voluntarily without the need for a compulsory process,” he said, adding that he was prepared to use “subpoenas and other tools in the new Congress” if necessary.The cabinet member Mr. Blumenthal is likely to call first is Mr. Lutnick, the commerce secretary and longtime friend of Mr. Trump who was Nvidia’s point-man in the administration. Last year, Mr. Huang said at a joint appearance with Mr. Lutnick that he talked with the commerce secretary more than any other official in the executive branch. Senator Thom Tillis, a retiring Republican from North Carolina, told the Sun on Thursday that he believes Mr. Lutnick should be the one to be hauled before Congress first. He says Mr. Lutnick can either come in now before a Republican-controlled committee or he can wait until Senate Democrats begin sending out subpoenas in January. “I think Lutnick probably needs to come and explain if he had this information and didn’t act on it or didn’t brief the president,” Mr. Tillis told the Sun. “If he waits until next year, he’s not going to have a fair venue to actually explain himself.”

House Leaders Threaten Ousted Nvidia Chief Jensen Huang With Subpoenas If He Does Not Appear for Testimony

House Leaders Threaten Ousted Nvidia Chief Jensen Huang With Subpoenas If He Does Not Appear for Testimony

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