民主党人周四启动了一项调查,旨在了解特朗普政府如何处理英伟达向中国的芯片销售问题。周四早些时候,该公司解雇了其首席执行官黄仁勋。他还同意向另一组由共和党主导的国会委员会作证。
在他被自己创立的公司罢免后,他承认了一段婚外情,此前有报道称他与一名被指控为中国间谍的女子有关系。(此后他被指控有更多的婚外情,对象是英伟达的员工。)
这名涉嫌的中国间谍爱丽丝·黄(Alice Huang)是英伟达客户Megaspeed的高管,这是一家位于新加坡的公司,美国官员怀疑其帮助将先进的英伟达芯片转运至中国。这项民主党的调查来自众议院筹款委员会最高民主党人理查德·尼尔(Richard Neal,D-Mass.)和参议院财政委员会最高民主党人罗恩·怀登(Ron Wyden,D-Ore.)。作为少数党,他们可以提问,但无法强制要求回答。
他们给商务部长霍华德·卢特尼克(Howard Lutnick)的一封措辞激烈的信要求该部门保存他们认为可疑且据称违法的安排的相关记录。
“该方案的运作方式如下”,正如信中所述。特朗普总统同意向中国出售英伟达的H200芯片,前提是这些在台湾制造的芯片必须先运往美国。抵达后,特朗普征收了关税,“实质上是通过看似违宪的出口税系统截取了英伟达对华销售额的一部分”,信中写道。随后,在卢特尼克的领导下,商务部颁发了出口许可证。
顺便说一下,特朗普与英伟达之间分享收入的交易是公开的。2025年8月,英伟达和AMD均同意将其对华芯片销售额的15%与美国政府分享,作为获得出口许可证协议的一部分,当时美联社对此进行了报道。
但这封信质疑,据报道卢特尼克在得知美国情报机构对爱丽丝·黄以及黄仁勋与她关系的怀疑后,为何仍继续允许Megaspeed购买芯片。它还质疑,据报道商务部为何批准其他亚洲公司购买英伟达芯片,“而这些公司在其列出的地址没有任何实体存在”。因此,此次调查针对的是政府,而不仅仅是英伟达和黄仁勋。
信中还对英伟达对特朗普项目的捐款如何影响此事提出了疑问。它指出,在特朗普得知“黄先生在与一名涉嫌间谍发生关系时的尴尬处境”之后,以及在英伟达向特朗普的项目(包括宴会厅)捐赠了2600万美元之后,该出口交易获得了批准。这似乎是在询问特朗普是否利用其对婚外情的了解来从英伟达那里获取捐款。
有趣的是,在周日播出的《60分钟》节目中对特朗普总统的采访中,他提到他和他的团队曾威胁要逮捕一位未具名的AI高管入狱,在那之后,这位高管“完全改变了态度”。
这是自涉嫌间谍丑闻曝光以来,关于英伟达对华销售及其与特朗普交易的第二次国会调查。由共和党主导的小组包括众议院中国共产党特别委员会、众议院外交事务委员会和众议院情报委员会的领导成员。该小组要求黄仁勋前来并在闭门会议上作证。如果他们不自愿同意,他们曾威胁要对他发出传票。在周四他辞职后,他同意了。
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Democrats on Thursday opened an inquiry into how the Trump administration handled Nvidia’s chip sales to China. Earlier on Thursday, the company ousted its CEO Jensen Huang. He also agreed to testify to a different set of Republican-led Congressional committees.
Huang was removed from the company he founded after he confessed to an extramarital affair amid reports of a relationship with a woman accused of being a Chinese spy. (He has since been accused of having more affairs, with Nvidia employees.)
The alleged Chinese spy, Alice Huang, was an executive of Nvidia customer Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company that U.S. officials suspect of helping route advanced Nvidia chips into China. The Democratic inquiry comes from Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. As the minority party, they can ask questions but can’t compel answers.
Their humdinger of a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick asks the department to preserve records about an arrangement they find questionable and, they allege, illegal.
“The scheme worked like this,” as the letter describes it. President Trump agreed to sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China as long as the chips, manufactured by Taiwan, were first shipped to the United States. On arriving, Trump added a tariff “effectively taking a cut of Nvidia’s sales to China through what appears to be an unconstitutional export tax system,” the letter said. Then the Commerce Department, under Lutnick, issued an export license.
By the way, the deal between Trump and Nvidia to share revenue was public. In August 2025, Nvidia and AMD both agreed to share 15% of their revenue from chip sales to China with the U.S. government as part of a deal to secure export licenses, the AP reported at the time.
But the letter questions why Lutnick continued to allow Megaspeed to buy chips even after he was reportedly informed by US intelligence of their suspicions of Alice Huang and of Jensen Huang’s relationship with her. It questionswhy the department reportedly green-lit other Asian companies to buy Nvidia chips “with no physical presence at their listed addresses.” So the inquiry is aimed at the administration, not just Nvidia and Huang.
The letter also questions how Nvidia’s donations to Trump’s projects factored in. It notes that the export deal was approved after Trump learned of “Mr. Huang’s compromised position” in sleeping with an alleged spy, and after Nvidia donated $26 million toward Trump’s projects, including the ballroom. It appears to be asking if Trump used his knowledge of the affair to secure donations from Nvidia.
Interestingly, in a “60 Minutes” interview with President Trump that aired on Sunday, he mentioned how he and his team had threatened an unnamed AI exec with jail, and after that, the exec “totally changed.”
This Congressional investigation into Nvidia’s China sales and its dealings with Trump is the second one, so far, since news of the alleged spy affair broke. The Republican-led group involves leaders from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the House Intelligence Committee. That group has demanded that Huang come to them and testify in a closed-door session. They had threatened to subpoena him if he didn’t voluntarily agree. On Thursday, after his resignation, he agreed.
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Julie Bort is the Startups/Venture Desk editor for TechCrunch.
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