Senior White House officials are discussing whether Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick should be pushed out in the wake of the spy scandal that forced Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang to resign, two people familiar with the situation told Reuters on Thursday.
The discussions come as a growing number of lawmakers from both parties criticise Lutnick over the administration’s refusal to add dozens of Chinese companies to a key US trade blacklist, and question whether the government has properly overseen Nvidia’s exports to China.
The criticism predates Huang’s resignation. Huang announced on Thursday that he would step down as chief executive of the leading AI chipmaker after revelations of an affair with Alice Huang, a woman US authorities suspect of spying for Beijing. Alice Huang was an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia customer accused of diverting advanced chips to China. The company has bought more than $4.8 billion of Nvidia AI chips since June 2024 and is under investigation over the alleged diversion.
On Thursday, Senator Tom Cotton, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote to Lutnick asking him to add Chinese memory maker ChangXin Memory Technologies, known as CXMT, to the Commerce Department’s Entity List. The designation would bar most American firms from supplying it. A day earlier, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chris Coons asked Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House chief of staff Stephen Miller to preserve all records relating to Nvidia’s chip exports to China and to confirm the hold by 17 November.
Republican Senator John Kennedy said Lutnick needed to answer questions about approving advanced US chip sales to China. Warren said Lutnick and his export-control chief, Jeffrey Kessler, “must explain why they have not closed export control loopholes and act today to ensure our advanced technology is not fuelling China’s military.”
Axios reported on Wednesday that Lutnick had stalled a crackdown on companies suspected of diverting Nvidia’s chips to China, even though President Donald Trump authorised the action three times this year, most recently on 5 November.
The Commerce Department has not added a single company to the Entity List since October 2025, according to Reuters, the longest gap between new listings in more than a decade. In June, Reuters reported that the administration had held off adding China’s AI startup DeepSeek, CXMT and more than 100 other companies flagged as national security risks to the blacklist.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lutnick’s future. A White House official said President Donald Trump “maintains complete confidence in the secretary and his ability to carry out the position.”
The central claim in this story, that senior officials are discussing pushing Lutnick out, rests on two unnamed people familiar with the situation speaking to Reuters. It has not been confirmed on the record by the White House, and no decision has been announced.
Sources: Reuters — “White House discussing Howard Lutnick’s future as Commerce secretary, people familiar say” (https://www.reuters.com/world/china/white-house-discussing-howard-lutnicks-future-commerce-secretary-people-familiar-2026-11-12/); Reuters — “Trump’s Commerce chief Lutnick criticized over chip exports after Nvidia CEO resignation” (https://www.kitco.com/news/off-the-wire/2026-11-12/trumps-commerce-chief-lutnick-criticized-over-chip-exports-after).
