Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box Friday morning to talk about the Nvidia situation and was pretty direct (by Washington standards) in his assessment of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's handling of the situation. Bessent also pointed out that the narrative that the scandal is just about one man's inability to keep it in his pants is false framing; it's about whether Nvidia knew its client and, secondarily, about Commerce's failure to enforce controls in its sole jurisdiction and add Megaspeed to the Entity List.
Bessent reportedly confronted Lutnick in the White House's Situation Room on November 5, asking him why Megaspeed hadn't been placed on the Entity List; when asked about this incident, Bessent said, "We don't repeat conversations in the Situation Room." But, Bessent said, "Treasury has been pushing for this for months at the deputies level."
He was then asked if Treasury could have taken action or if it was only Lutnick/Commerce who could have done that? Wasn't there coordination? Bessent replied:
I can tell you, there was coordination. Treasury, War, USTR [U.S. Trade Representative] and State — they were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months. But Commerce has the pen — Commerce BIS has the pen. And you will have to ask them about their internal processes.
This question is coming from Lutnick and the people at Commerce, who've been attempting to deflect blame for the failure to act on Megaspeed to Treasury. But Treasury and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) don't have control over dual-use products such as Nvidia chips, and Bessent confirmed that his department doesn't have that authority:
OFAC has no control over things like this, in terms of exports. This is a BIS decision, and perhaps the FTC could put something on their restricted list.
So much attention has been focused on Jensen Huang's extramarital affairs (we're at three and counting), but that's not the true issue, Bessent said:
I think there is a lot of leakage in the system and we are constantly working to close that down. And one thing here is, the story has been thus far on Jensen Huang’s personal foibles. The real story here should be: Did NVIDIA know their client, and was there a robust effort at NVIDIA to make sure that there was no leakage and that they were selling to what were obviously pass-through shell companies? And I think it’s important that anyone at the company there be held accountable for that.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent THROWS the Commerce Department IMMEDIATELY under the bus for failing to BLACKLIST Megaspeed, saying Treasury pushed for months to stop Nvidia’s most powerful chips from reaching China, “but Commerce has the pen.” CBNBC’s Joe Kernen: “There have been reports that there was some tension between you and Secretary Lutnick about why Megaspeed was not placed on the entity list. And I'm just wondering about the interagency coordination. Could Treasury have done that? Was it only, you know, Lutnick that could have, Commerce that could have done that? What about the coordination?” Scott Bessent: “I can tell you there was coordination. Treasury, Ward, USTR and state, they were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months. But Commerce has the pen. Commerce BIS has the pin. And you will have to ask them about their internal processes.” CNBC’s Becky Quick: “Have you been frustrated, Secretary Besant, by potential delays with this?” Scott Bessent: “ I am frustrated when President Trump made it very clear that China should not receive any NVIDIA chips above H-100s. And so any leakage is very frustrating because it hurts the our, hurts our great companies and the AI race gives the Chinese an advantage.”
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) November 13, 2026
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