The News
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has kept his job through scrutiny over his ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; his cryptocurrency firm, Tether; and his former financial services firm, Cantor Fitzgerald.
The Nvidia fallout may be the toughest test yet of his staying power.
A growing GOP contingent is pointing the finger at Lutnick for not cracking down hard enough on Megaspeed, the AI chip firm with ties to an alleged Chinese spy with whom former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an affair, and for what they see as the Commerce Department’s broader failure to restrict AI chip exports to China. In the wake of reporting that other administration officials had urged the Commerce secretary to move faster, Republicans on and off Capitol Hill are accusing Lutnick of defying President Donald Trump by not imposing curbs on the firm — and even positing his job could be at risk.
“We’re hearing … Trump has directed three times that [Megaspeed be blacklisted],” Rep. John Moolenaar, the top Republican on the House Select Committee on China, told Semafor. “If that’s true … then clearly, it seems that those questions need to be answered.”
But so far the balance of GOP officials are coming to Lutnick’s defense, suggesting the commerce secretary won’t be going anywhere soon.
