Calls for Nvidia's Jensen Huang to resign mount as Congress weighs subpoena

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., doubled down Wednesday on his call for Jensen Huang to resign, telling CNBC the Nvidia chief is too compromised to stay. His reasoning was blunt: Huang is now a target for blackmail, and America can't take that risk. Cramer sits on the Senate banking committee, and he's not alone in saying it out loud.

The same day, Reps. Brian Mast, John Moolenaar and Rick Crawford were still waiting for an answer. The trio — chairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Permanent Select Committee on China and the House intelligence panel — asked Huang in a Nov. 4 letter to testify on Nov. 18. Mast and Moolenaar told reporters Wednesday they'd given Huang until the end of the day to respond, and both said their committees have subpoena power and are prepared to use it.

Huang admitted Sunday to the affair with Alice Huang, who is not related to him; news outlets have reported U.S. intelligence concluded she was a Chinese spy. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., the top Democrat on the House Oversight subcommittee on military and foreign affairs, called on Huang to resign and said he never imagined the CEO might be involved with someone accused of helping smuggle chips into China. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., who is retiring, also said Huang should step down, saying he let himself get compromised by Beijing.

Huang had long fought strict export controls on AI chips sold to China, which put him at odds with China hawks on the Hill. Now Congress is trying to push through the AI Overwatch Act, the MATCH Act and the Chip Security Act as part of this year's National Defense Authorization Act, which is still stalled. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Jim Banks, R-Ind. — Warren becomes banking committee chair — said the affair makes those controls more urgent and that Nvidia must answer questions about how the two were connected.

Subramanyam said the probe splits into two tracks: what Nvidia was doing in China, and why the administration appeared to know and stayed quiet, plus what Nvidia's money and Huang's influence bought. Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., co-chair of the House AI task force, said Tuesday he hopes the scandal doesn't derail talks on chip export controls. Huang, who flew on Air Force One with President Trump to China in May, is likely to sit at the center of investigations once Democrats take both chambers in January.