Republican leaders on Capitol Hill said Thursday that they are negotiating with Jensen Huang to appear before Congress, hours after Nvidia announced that its co-founder had stepped down following a scandal involving a former executive at the company Megaspeed who is suspected of being a Chinese spy.
"We are in discussions with him right now on a date to come and meet with us," said Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on China. He added a warning: "If for some reason that were not to happen, all three committees, all three chairs have said we will use our subpoena power."
Nvidia, whose chips have fueled the artificial intelligence boom, said Thursday that Huang had resigned. The announcement landed in the middle of a growing furor in Washington over the company's ties to Megaspeed and its former executive, who has been publicly reported as a suspected People's Republic of China intelligence asset.
Moolenaar and two other committee chairmen, Reps. Brian Mast of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Rick Crawford of the Intelligence Committee, wrote to Huang on Nov. 4 requesting a closed-door briefing with all three panels. They said the briefing would cover Nvidia's "security protocols against foreign adversary espionage and your interactions with a publicly reported People's Republic of China (PRC) intelligence asset." The lawmakers gave Huang a deadline of Wednesday to respond.
Mast and Moolenaar told reporters Thursday that they received a response, and Mast said Huang indicated he is willing to appear. Moolenaar said Huang's resignation "does change the dynamic" around the potential testimony. Republicans still control Congress until January.
"I think right now our goal is to get him in as soon as possible, so that we have a full understanding of the facts and get to the bottom of the truth of this situation," Moolenaar said.
Huang's departure from the company he co-founded has not quieted demands in Congress for answers about Nvidia's relationship with Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data center company that gained access to highly prized chips banned from export to China. Megaspeed is under investigation in the United States and Singapore for allegedly smuggling those chips into China.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CBS News he expects "there'll be an interest in doing oversight" in the upper chamber as well. Asked whether Huang should testify, Thune said it would make sense, citing "the nature of the association and the governments and the national security interests" involved.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, said on CNBC on Thursday that he would happily support subpoenaing Huang, remarks made shortly before Nvidia announced the resignation. A Cramer spokesperson said the senator would still support a subpoena for the tech founder. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, said Democrats have questions for the Trump administration as well. "Despite Jensen Huang's resignation, Congress must demand answers from Mr. Huang and others at Nvidia about how they may have put U.S. national security at risk," Schumer wrote on X, adding that the administration "must also answer for what it did once it learned about Mr. Huang's relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence asset."
President Trump, a friend of Huang's, has downplayed the scandal and said Thursday that Huang had done a "fantastic job." In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote that with Huang out, "there is only one man to take his place," naming Apple's Tim Cook.
