Senior White House officials are discussing whether Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick should be pushed out in the wake of the spy scandal surrounding Nvidia's former chief executive Jensen Huang, two people familiar with the situation told Reuters on Thursday.
A growing number of lawmakers have criticised Lutnick over the administration's refusal to add dozens of Chinese companies to a key US trade blacklist, and over whether the government has properly overseen Nvidia's exports to China.
The criticism predates Huang's resignation on Thursday. Huang stepped down as chief executive of the leading AI chipmaker after revelations of an affair with Alice Huang, whom US authorities suspect of spying for Beijing. The charge that Lutnick has not done enough to restrict AI chip shipments to China has gathered force as the fallout from Huang's actions grows.
Axios has reported that President Donald Trump approved a crackdown on firms suspected of diverting Nvidia AI chips to China three times this year — in May, in August and again on November 5 — but the restrictions still have not been implemented. Lutnick's department oversees the export controls at the centre of the dispute.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Lutnick's future. A White House official said of the criticism that President Donald Trump "maintains complete confidence in the secretary and his ability to carry out the position."
No decision has been announced, and the discussions described by the two sources do not mean Lutnick will leave. But the fact that senior officials are weighing his future at all underlines how far the Nvidia scandal has spread from the company itself into the administration's China policy.
