Democrats Open Nvidia Inquiry, Say Trump Ran a ‘Scheme’ on China Chip Sales

Democrats on two congressional committees opened an inquiry on Thursday into how the Trump administration handled Nvidia's chip sales to China, the second such probe since allegations about CEO Jensen Huang's relationship with a woman accused of being a Chinese spy became public.

The letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick came from Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. It asks the department to preserve records related to an arrangement the lawmakers describe as a scheme and allege is illegal. As the minority party, the two can ask questions but cannot compel answers.

As the letter tells it, President Trump agreed to allow sales of Nvidia's H200 chips to China on the condition that the chips, manufactured in Taiwan, were first shipped to the United States. On arrival, a tariff was applied, which the lawmakers say effectively took a cut of Nvidia's China sales through what appears to be an unconstitutional export tax system. The Commerce Department then issued an export license.

The lawmakers focus on why Lutnick's department continued to let Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia customer that US officials suspect of helping route advanced chips into China, keep buying after he was reportedly informed by US intelligence about suspicions surrounding Alice Huang and her relationship with Jensen Huang. They also ask why the department reportedly cleared other Asian companies to buy Nvidia chips despite having no physical presence at their listed addresses.

The letter also raises donations. It notes that the export deal was approved after Trump learned of Huang's compromised position, and after Nvidia donated $26 million toward Trump's projects, including the ballroom. TechCrunch reported that the letter appears to ask whether Trump used his knowledge of the affair to secure donations from the company. A revenue-sharing arrangement under which Nvidia and AMD agreed in August 2025 to hand the US government 15% of their China chip sales was already public.

Earlier on Thursday, Nvidia ousted Huang as chief executive. He had confessed to an extramarital affair amid reports of the relationship with the woman accused of being a spy, and has since been accused of further affairs with Nvidia employees. After his removal he agreed to testify in a closed-door session before three Republican-led panels, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Intelligence Committee, which had threatened a subpoena if he did not appear voluntarily.

The inquiry targets the administration, not just Nvidia and its former chief executive: it is about why the license was issued and why regulators did not stop after being warned. Trump added his own context in a 60 Minutes interview that aired on Sunday, saying he and his team had threatened an unnamed AI executive with jail and that the executive totally changed afterward.

What to watch next is whether Commerce preserves and produces the records, what emerges from the closed-door Republican hearings, and whether the H200 export license is revisited. For Nvidia, a leadership change now overlaps with two parallel congressional probes, shifting its Washington agenda from product competitiveness toward compliance and political risk.