Nvidia scandal spreads to White House as Lutnick blamed for chips leak

Washington loves a scandal. Mix in allegations of an affair with a Chinese spy, advanced AI chips, and a controversial member of the Trump administration, and you get this. This whole thing. ...is an intergalactic freak show. After the abrupt resignation of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, the questions have now spread to the Trump administration about who allowed these crucial AI chips to allegedly be funneled to China. Apparently, the Department of Commerce greenlit the sale of $4 billion in advanced chips to the spy's company. Thank you, sir. At the head of the Commerce Department is Howard Lutnick. The finger-pointing within the White House now bursting into public. Treasury, War, USTR, and State, they were in favor of putting Megaspeed on the entity list for months, but Commerce has depended. Let's break that down. Megaspeed is the company that was buying NVIDIA chips. One of Jensen Huang's two apparent affairs was with this woman, an alleged Chinese spy. It raises really troubling questions about the coherence and operation of U.S. national security policymaking. Lutnick has been pushing the administration to walk a thin line, sell China some chips to keep them reliant on American technology, but not enough to let them get ahead. We don't sell them our best stuff, not our second best stuff, not even our third best. I think fourth best is where we've come out that we're cool. Lutnick's now agreed to testify before Congress next month, but the question is, will he be able to hold on to his job until then? Peter Armstrong, CBC News, Washington.