ISLAMABAD — US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday blamed the Commerce Department for failing to blacklist Megaspeed, the Singapore company at the centre of a scandal that prompted Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang to resign . Speaking on CNBC , Bessent said Treasury, the Defence Department, the US Trade Representative’s office and the State Department had backed adding Megaspeed to Washington’s trade blacklist, “for months”.
“But Commerce has the pen,” Bessent said. “You will have to ask them about their internal processes.” He said he was “frustrated” because President Donald Trump “made it very clear that China should not receive any Nvidia chips above H100s”. “Any leakage is very frustrating because it hurts our great companies, and in the AI race gives the Chinese an advantage,” he said.
The remarks are a rare public rebuke of one cabinet department by another. Commerce is led by Secretary Howard Lutnick. Megaspeed is suspected of helping Chinese firms get around US export controls by buying Nvidia chips for its data centres in Southeast Asia and routing them to China.