US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has called for a major overhaul of Nvidia’s leadership following Jensen Huang’s resignation, questioning whether the chipmaker pursued potentially illegal sales of advanced artificial intelligence processors to inflate revenue and earnings.
In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Bessent said Nvidia’s board should look outside the company for a permanent chief executive and suggested that other executives could face scrutiny over the company’s compliance with US export controls.
“I want to keep coming back to what was the culture at Nvidia, and were they pressing these seemingly illicit sales to goose their revenues and their earnings?” Bessent said.
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His comments add a new dimension to the crisis facing the world’s leading AI chipmaker, which is dealing with questions about its leadership, potential export-control violations and the financial relationships surrounding its business partners. The remarks also come two days before Nvidia is scheduled to release its first quarterly results since Huang’s departure.
Bessent suggested the company’s problems extended beyond its former chief executive, arguing that regulators would take a broader approach if a financial institution faced comparable compliance concerns.
“If this were a bank and they hadn’t complied like this, the OCC would be in there right now, and a lot of the executives would be removed,” he said, referring to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
He also questioned Nvidia’s financial disclosures, pointing to an increase in reported Singapore revenue as sales to China declined. Nvidia stopped separately reporting Singapore revenue in November 2025, explaining that it had adopted a new methodology based on customers’ headquarters rather than billing addresses to provide a more accurate picture of its geographical sales distribution.
The dispute is based partly on Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company suspected by US authorities of diverting Nvidia chips to China in violation of American export restrictions. Huang resigned on Thursday following revelations about his relationship with Alice Huang, a former Megaspeed executive whom US intelligence officials suspect of spying for China.
Nvidia appointed Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as interim chief executive while its board searches for a permanent replacement.
Washington’s Export-Control Dispute Widens
Bessent’s intervention comes amid growing tensions between the Treasury Department and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s department over the suspected diversion of advanced AI processors to China.
Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday, Bessent said several federal agencies had supported adding Megaspeed to the government’s export blacklist for months.
“But Commerce has the pen,” he said, referring to the department’s authority over export-control decisions.
His remarks followed an Axios report that Bessent confronted Lutnick in the White House Situation Room over Commerce’s failure to act against Megaspeed. The Commerce Department denied that the confrontation occurred.
Lutnick is facing separate scrutiny over financial relationships involving his family and Nvidia’s business partners. CNBC reported on Friday that Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street firm formerly run by Lutnick and now led by his sons, had helped arrange billions of dollars in financing for companies doing business with Nvidia.
Cantor said its Nvidia shareholdings had fallen nearly 50% over six months as national security concerns surrounding Huang intensified. The positions were linked to client swap transactions rather than proprietary investments, the firm said.
There is no evidence that Lutnick shared sensitive government information with his sons or that Cantor traded on such information.
Bessent also defended President Donald Trump’s handling of the export-control dispute, saying the president had drawn a firm line against sales to China of chips more advanced than Nvidia’s H200 processor.
Trump authorized sales of H200 chips to approved Chinese customers in December following months of lobbying by Huang. The arrangement requires the US government to receive 25% of the proceeds.
The dispute exposes competing pressures within Washington’s approach to AI technology. The administration wants to protect American leadership in advanced computing while determining how much access Chinese companies should have to US-designed processors. Allegations that restricted chips were diverted through third parties have intensified scrutiny of Nvidia’s commercial relationships and the effectiveness of export enforcement.
Shareholders and Musk Push for Huang’s Return
While Bessent is demanding a leadership overhaul, a section of Nvidia’s shareholders and employees is campaigning for Huang to return as chief executive.
A petition calling for his reinstatement had attracted more than 100,000 signatures by Saturday afternoon, according to reports. The campaign, hosted on standwithjesen.com, reportedly included approximately 60,000 shareholders, 6,000 current employees and 1,000 former employees.
Among Huang’s reported supporters was Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, who warned that Nvidia could lose important commercial relationships without its co-founder.
“Jensen drove supply chain brilliantly at Nvidia, but many of those deals were a handshake with Jensen, not a written contract,” Musk wrote on X on Saturday.
“Without Jensen, at least some of those critical deals will be lost.”
Musk’s comments point to the importance of Huang’s personal relationships in Nvidia’s business model. The company’s expansion has involved close relationships with major technology companies, cloud computing providers, and infrastructure operators. Some of those arrangements may have been built around Huang’s direct involvement and influence across the industry.
His departure therefore raises questions about whether Nvidia can preserve the commercial relationships that helped establish its dominance in AI computing under a new chief executive.
Kress, who will lead the company on an interim basis, said Nvidia would build on the foundation Huang established over more than three decades.
“NVIDIA’s strength has always come from its people, and together with our leadership team, I am committed to building on the extraordinary foundation Jensen created over the last 33 years,” she said in the company’s announcement.
Nvidia had initially backed Huang after he acknowledged the affair, but later said it would conduct an independent investigation following reports that he had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.
The company now faces an immediate test as investors prepare to assess its financial performance and the implications of the leadership transition.
Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives, said he saw little prospect of Huang returning, arguing that the allegations had created legal, board-level and political complications that would make reinstatement difficult.
“No one individual can replace Jensen as CEO,” Ives said, while arguing that the company’s former leadership image could not simply be restored after the scandal.
He added that the focus should shift to Nvidia’s next phase under Kress, beginning with Tuesday’s earnings announcement.
The results will be important because Nvidia remains central to the global AI investment cycle. Investors will be looking for evidence that demand for its processors remains strong and that the management transition has not disrupted customer relationships or the company’s operating plans.
However, the questions raised by Bessent introduce risks beyond the usual earnings assessment. Potential export-control violations, scrutiny of financial disclosures, and the possibility of further regulatory action could affect Nvidia’s relationships with customers and its ability to sell advanced processors into international markets.