Editorial Team
4 min read
Huang agrees to congressional questioning as Johnson backs China chip limits
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast says outgoing Nvidia chief Jensen Huang has agreed to questioning, with a date still under negotiation. Speaker Mike Johnson says support for limiting chip exports to China is growing as lawmakers examine allegations involving Huang and a cloud partner.
- Brian Mast says Jensen Huang has agreed to questioning; the date remains unsettled.
- The inquiry concerns Huang’s relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence operative and alleged chip diversions.
- Mike Johnson backs tighter export limits, while Donald Trump has continued to support Huang publicly.
Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s outgoing chief executive who co-founded the AI chipmaker in 1993 and has led it since, has agreed to congressional questioning, Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who has clashed with Huang over export controls, said on November 12. Lawmakers and Huang’s team are still negotiating a date, according to the account of Mast’s remarks.
The agreement comes as House Speaker Mike Johnson says support is growing for limiting semiconductor exports to China. The inquiry into Huang and the debate over export policy now overlap, but neither an interview date nor a new restriction has been announced in these accounts.
An interview agreement, not a completed inquiry
Mast said the meeting was expected to take place by video and be transcribed. He anticipated an appearance before Thanksgiving, while saying the day remained under negotiation.
Congressional staff spoke with Nvidia’s team on Wednesday night, and Mast said Thursday that he expected Huang to testify within the next week, according to the account of those discussions.
Mast is pursuing the inquiry alongside John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Rick Crawford, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The three Republicans had requested a closed-door briefing for November 18 about the allegations. The account of the negotiations says Mast had been prepared to issue a subpoena if Jensen Huang did not respond; it does not establish that one was issued.
What lawmakers are investigating
Nvidia said Thursday that Huang was stepping down, according to the report carrying the company’s statement. Pressure followed reports of an affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman whom U.S. authorities suspect of spying for Beijing.
Alice Huang was an executive at Megaspeed, an Nvidia cloud partner that Washington suspects of helping China obtain advanced AI chips restricted under U.S. export controls. That connection makes the inquiry consequential beyond the personal relationship: it raises questions about access to restricted computing hardware through a commercial partner.
