Lutnick Will Answer to the Senate on Dec. 10 as Bessent Says the Real Question Is Whether Nvidia Knew Its Customer

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has agreed to testify before the Senate Banking Committee on Dec. 10, CBS News reported Friday, citing a U.S. official. The date gives Congress a firm day to question him about the Nvidia chip scandal and Megaspeed, the Singapore company at its center.

The date came the same day Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on CNBC that the Treasury, the Pentagon, the State Department and the U.S. Trade Representative had favored putting Megaspeed on the government's export blacklist for months, while the Commerce Department, which keeps that list, "has the pen". As of Friday, Megaspeed had not been added.

Bessent also turned the spotlight on the chipmaker itself. He said the bigger question is whether Nvidia knew who its customer was and did enough to keep its chips from flowing through shell companies, The Globe and Mail reported. The New York Times reported that he said Nvidia employees should be held accountable if they got around the law.

The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Bessent's remarks, CBS reported. The department has disputed parts of the reporting around the dispute, including an account of a conversation between the two men.

President Trump has stood by his commerce secretary. On Thursday he gave Lutnick a public vote of confidence despite the uproar over the department's handling of Nvidia chip controls, Bloomberg reported.

By agreeing to appear, Lutnick will have the chance to lay out his department's record himself, under questioning from senators of both parties, rather than through anonymous accounts and spokespeople.

The record shows that no single official puts a company on the Entity List alone. Additions are decided by the End-User Review Committee, an interagency panel chaired by Commerce whose voting members are the Departments of Commerce, State, Defense and Energy, with Treasury taking part as needed, according to the Bureau of Industry and Security. The committee adds companies by majority vote.

That structure is why the questions now center on how Megaspeed's file moved through the process, who raised concerns and when, rather than on one signature.

Megaspeed is an Nvidia customer that national security officials have worried could be a pathway for advanced American AI chips to reach China, The Hill reported. The scandal widened this week as Jensen Huang stepped down as Nvidia's chief executive.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, had asked Lutnick to come before the panel to answer questions about Nvidia and the Commerce Department's role.

Three things to watch before Dec. 10: whether Commerce moves on Megaspeed, whether Lutnick responds to Bessent in public, and what Nvidia's new leadership says about how the company vetted its customers. The goal everyone in the administration says they share is the right one: keeping America's most advanced chips out of the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. Liberty Bell Report will follow each development as it is confirmed.