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Nvidia fallout fuels questions about Lutnick’s staying power

The Treasury Department, among other federal agencies, were in favor of placing trade restrictions on Megaspeed, but the decision ultimately lay with Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Friday.

✦ Extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting•From 4 sources•2 min read•Updated November 13, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC
Key points
  • Driving the news: " Treasury, War, USTR, and State — they were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months, but Commerce has the pen," Bessent said on CNBC Friday morning.
  • “When you saw [Treasury] Secretary [Scott] Bessent blowing up at Lutnick in the Situation Room, you can rest assured the working level at Treasury was all over Commerce about chip sales for over a year,” Steve Bannon, the MAGA commentator and Bessent ally, told Semafor.
  • 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.

Bessent confronted Lutnick in the Situation Room following the midterm elections over not placing Megaspeed on the entity list, according to the outlet.

Additional details
  • “This is as serious as an aneurysm.” Even some of the Trump administration’s staunchest allies have weighed in, accusing Lutnick of defying the president by failing to rein in Megaspeed.
  • The scrutiny has raised questions about Lutnick’s job security, but many Republicans are still publicly defending the close Trump ally, leaving few certain that he may really be on his way out.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • “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.

How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →

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Every article behind this summary — 5 articles from 4 outlets

SemaforNovember 13, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC → FortuneNovember 13, 2026, 7:42 PM UTC → NYT PoliticsNovember 13, 2026, 5:05 PM UTC → AxiosNovember 13, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC → SemaforNovember 13, 2026, 12:21 AM UTC →

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