Bessent Urges 'Dramatic Shakeup' at Nvidia, Outside CEO After Huang Exit
Treasury secretary questions whether the chipmaker pursued illicit AI chip sales and points to export-control scrutiny as the board searches for a permanent chief executive.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday called for a "dramatic shakeup" at Nvidia and urged the chipmaker's board to hire an outside chief executive, days after CEO Jensen Huang resigned, intensifying scrutiny of how the company handled U.S. export controls on advanced AI chips.
"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 in an interview on Fox News, according to CNBC. He said the board should look beyond the company for Huang's permanent successor and suggested that other Nvidia executives should face scrutiny over compliance with restrictions on chip sales to China.
Nvidia announced Thursday that Huang, 63, was stepping down from the company he co-founded 33 years ago and built into what was recently a roughly $4 trillion business at the center of the artificial intelligence boom. The board named Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress as interim CEO and said it would consider both internal and external candidates for the permanent role.
"The Board has full confidence in Colette and the leadership team, and we expect the company's operations, customer commitments and product roadmap to continue without interruption," board chair Harvey Jones said in a company release.
Huang's exit followed revelations about his romantic ties to Alice Huang, a businesswoman who has worked for Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia customer that U.S. intelligence officials suspect of spying for China and of diverting advanced chips. Huang apologized on Nov. 8 for being "unfaithful to my wife." The New York Times also reported a separate affair with Kimberly Powell, an Nvidia vice president.
Political fallout
The remarks land amid a growing feud between Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over the suspected diversion of AI chips to China. Both are expected to accompany President Donald Trump to China this week, where he is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the APEC summit.
A White House official told Reuters on Thursday that Trump maintains "complete confidence" in Lutnick despite mounting scrutiny of his handling of the matter. The dispute and the leadership vacuum at Nvidia leave investors watching for signals on export policy and the company's next chief executive.