Pressure grows on Trump's Commerce Secretary Lutnick in fallout from Nvidia scandal

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has blamed the Commerce Department, run by Howard Lutnick, for failing to properly oversee the export of high-spec Nvidia chips, as the fallout from the scandal widens.

There is growing pressure on Lutnick across the political spectrum to explain his department's actions.

Jensen Huang was ousted as Nvidia CEO after revelations he had an affair with a businesswoman who was also allegedly a Chinese spy.

Megaspeed, the firm she worked for, had been probed by US government agencies over suspicions it had been smuggling Nvidia chips into China, reports said, but is not on a list of firms that US companies are prevented from working with.

Bessent told CNBC several agencies "were in favour of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months".

"But Commerce has the pen... and you will have to ask them about their internal process," he added.

Bessent's comments come after Lutnick was called to testify before the Senate Banking Committee next month over the Commerce Department's role in allowing Nvidia to export its advanced chips.

Other congressional committees have asked both Lutnick and his department to retain all records relating to Nvidia and Huang.

Bessent said he was "frustrated" by delays in putting the company on the export control list and reports of leakage of AI chips into China.

"President Trump made it very clear that China should not receive any Nvidia chips above H100s, so any leakage is very frustrating because it hurts our great companies in the AI race, because it gives the Chinese an advantage," he said.

Last year, the Commerce Department had been investigating Megaspeed over suspicions it had been smuggling some of Nvidia's advanced AI chips into China, according to the New York Times. Megaspeed has been contacted for comment.

There was also pressure on the Commerce Department to add it to the list, but separate reporting in the Financial Times said the department was delaying efforts to have the cloud computing firm included.

However, Bessent also pointed the finger at Nvidia.

"The story has been thus far of Jensen Huang's personal foibles," he told CNBC's Squawk Box programme, external.

"The real story here should be: Did Nvidia know their client, and was there a robust effort at Nvidia to make sure that there was no leakage and that they were selling to what were obviously pass-through shell companies?

"It's important that anyone at the company there be held accountable for that."