Jensen Huang is out at Nvidia. Washington is just getting started with him and the company he co- founded.
Huang, the leather-jacket-clad CEO of the world's most important chipmaker, resigned from Nvidia on Thursday after revelations that he had an affair with a suspected Chinese spy . But the spy saga is gripping Washington, and lawmakers are preparing for investigations into how the now-ex-CEO's affair may have damaged U.S. artificial intelligence dominance, the national security implications and the executive's close relationship with President Donald Trump and his Cabinet.
Republicans will have their chance first during their last six weeks controlling both chambers of Congress. GOP leaders immediately summoned Huang to Capitol Hill and said they would subpoena him if he doesn't agree to show up. In January, Democrats, who are already eager to make their mark with oversight when they take over the U.S. House and Senate, will be in the driver's seat.
"In this environment where there's some really high stakes when it comes to our national security, I would expect there would be some follow-up, yeah," Senate Majority Leader John Thune , R-S.D., told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday.
Huang and the woman with whom he reportedly had a relationship, Alice Huang, an executive at the Singaporean technology company Megaspeed and an alleged Chinese spy have drawn congressional attention. And Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has drawn fire after reports this week that he stalled President Donald Trump' s crackdowns on firms routing Nvidia chips to China .
Some Congress members have also called for an investigation into the role of the Bureau of Industry and Security, a subagency of the Commerce Department that manages and enforces export controls, in the Huang scandal.
The New York Times reported on Monday that Nvidia's general counsel, Tim Teter, claimed in emails to Commerce investigators probing Alice Huang's company that he'd been in touch with Jeffrey Kessler, who leads BIS. The Commerce investigation into Megaspeed, which allegedly smuggled restricted chips to China, was then transferred to the Justice Department.
By Thursday night, Senate banking committee Chair Tim Scott , R-S.C., summoned both Huang and Lutnick t o testify before his committee in December. Later that same night, Lutnick had "proactively agreed to appear voluntarily before the Banking Committee to address their questions," Kristen Eichamer, a Commerce Department spokesperson, said in a statement.
Scott threatened to subpoena Huang if he does not appear. A banking panel spokesperson did not immediately respond Friday morning when asked if they'd heard from Huang.
"Recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive U.S. technology," Scott wrote to Huang. "The American people deserve answers."
And with Democrats poised to take control of both chambers come January, the tech mogul's close ties to the White House will add fuel to an already burning fire as the new majority spools up myriad investigations into the Trump administration.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer , D-N.Y., in a post to X on Thursday, said "Congress must demand answers from Mr. Huang and others at Nvidia about how they may have put U.S. national security at risk." Schumer is in a contested race to become Senate majority leader in the next Congress.
The senators who will lead those investigations, and hold subpoena power in the new Congress, are gearing up for Nvidia to take center stage.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren , D-Mass., the likely incoming chair of the Senate banking panel, said in a statement Thursday that "Mr. Huang, NVIDIA executives, and NVIDIA's board of directors still owe Congress answers about the company's compliance with U.S. export controls
Warren and Sen. Chris Coons , D-Del., the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations subpanel with jurisdiction over East Asia and the Pacific, sent a letter Wednesday to Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller instructing them to preserve all documents and communications related to Nvidia's exports of "advanced AI chips to China or to entities that may divert such chips to China."
Even before Democrats take control in January, Huang is expected to appear before Congress.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast , R-Fla., is actively negotiating for Huang to testify before House committees and told reporters Thursday the Nvidia CEO has agreed to appear in the coming weeks.
Details of that testimony are still being worked out, Mast said. It would likely include his committee, as well as the House intelligence panel and the House Permanent Select Committee on China, and it would be under oath and transcribed. It's not clear at this point whether it would be public.
"We want to see him basically in a week … Sooner rather than later," Mast told reporters Thursday, adding that he believed it would happen before Thanksgiving.
If Huang doesn't willingly appear, Mast said he will subpoena him.
Mast, along with House Select China Committee Chair Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., and House Intelligence Committee Chair Rick Crawford, R-Ark., send a second request Thursday to Huang and Teter requesting they appear and giving them an 8 p.m. ET Friday deadline to respond. Mast sent a second request to Kessler.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer , D-N.J., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Friday during an appearance on CNBC's "The Exchange" that he wants answers from Huang on the national security and export implications of the affair.
"From an intelligence committee perspective, you can imagine from an AI perspective, how important this is for our national security, for our critical infrastructure and understand when it comes to chip policy, what exactly got to China and ... did Megaspeed divert chips?" Gottheimer said.
The calls for immediate investigation into Huang and Nvidia on the day of his resignation represent a stunning fall from grace in the halls of power for the former CEO. Huang was one of the most effective voices for the AI industry in Washington — able to toggle between leveraging his relationship with Trump and defending his industry from fears about AI's risks to lawmakers.
"He is always the TED Talk guy," one senior Democratic staff member who was granted anonymity to describe private meetings they had attended with Huang, told CNBC. "He's really good and articulate, and really good at explaining why AI is important and why it's so important for the United States to be leading here."
The staffer said Huang was a "happy warrior" for AI, and stayed longer than scheduled or anticipated for questions from lawmakers. But in the meetings with lawmakers the aide attended, they said Huang did not aggressively push against export controls or get too "deep in the weeds" to really "lobby one way or the other" with the lawmakers.
Huang has repeatedly resisted export controls publicly, a move that has rubbed some lawmakers the wrong way.
Some lawmakers even lamented the loss of Huang, despite the inevitable buzzsaw he now faces on Capitol Hill.
"It's just sad all around," Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said of Huang's resignation.
