Lot of leakage: Bessent blames Lutnick for not blacklisting Nvidia partner Megaspeed

Résumé détaillé

Scott Bessent said on Friday that the Treasury Department, Pentagon, US Trade Representative's office and State Department had supported putting Megaspeed on Washington's trade blacklist "for months". But despite that backing, the decision was never made.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has publicly pointed the finger at Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's department over its failure to blacklist Megaspeed, the Singapore-based company at the centre of a widening Nvidia scandal that has already ended Jensen Huang's tenure as the chipmaker's chief executive.

Bessent said on Friday that the Treasury Department, Pentagon, US Trade Representative's office and State Department had supported putting Megaspeed on Washington's trade blacklist "for months". But despite that backing, the decision was never made.

"But Commerce has the pen. You will have to ask them about their internal processes," Bessent told CNBC.

The blunt remark amounts to a rare public rebuke from one Cabinet department to another. It also puts Lutnick's Commerce Department under scrutiny at a awkward moment, with questions already mounting inside the Trump administration over how effectively US export controls are being enforced.

Megaspeed has emerged as a key name in the controversy surrounding Nvidia Saga and its prized artificial intelligence chips. The Singapore company is suspected of helping Chinese firms bypass US export restrictions by purchasing Nvidia chips for data centres in Southeast Asia and allegedly routing them towards China. Reports have said the company traded more than USD 4 billion worth of Nvidia chips over a two-year period.

Washington has imposed strict controls on the most advanced AI chips that can be sold to China. Bessent said President Donald Trump had been clear about the limits. He said he was "frustrated" because Trump "made it very clear that China should not receive any Nvidia chips above H100s".

"Any leakage is very frustrating because it hurts our great companies, and in the AI race gives the Chinese an advantage," Bessent said.

This comes at a sensitive time for the administration. Some Trump advisers have reportedly begun questioning whether Lutnick should remain at Commerce following the fallout from the Nvidia affair.

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