Jensen Huang to Testify Before Congress on China Chip Allegations

Jensen Huang will testify before Congress before Thanksgiving, days after resigning as NVIDIA's CEO and president with immediate effect. House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast confirmed the schedule and said Huang agreed to appear on Wednesday — hours before NVIDIA announced his departure — after lawmakers threatened him with a subpoena.

The hearing is expected to take place behind closed doors. Mast told Bloomberg he expects it to be filmed and transcribed. Three House bodies will participate: the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Intelligence Committee and the panel focused on China.

What does the testimony cover?

At the center of the hearing sit U.S. export controls and Huang's conduct. Mast has been a vocal critic of NVIDIA's stance on chip export policy and framed the session as both adversarial and protective of the company.

"Jensen and I have been very at odds as some of you already know on export controls, but NVIDIA is a very important company to the United States of America," Mast said. "I don't want to see anything hurt in NVIDIA, but he has some very serious questions to answer."

Why did Huang resign?

NVIDIA entered turmoil over the weekend when it emerged the company was investigating Huang over an affair he admitted to, allegedly with a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy. President Donald Trump said the FBI is investigating the situation as well.

On Wednesday, reports surfaced of a second affair, this time with Kimberly Powell, an NVIDIA executive who reported directly to Huang. The company's board met later that day to decide his future. Colette Kress, NVIDIA's executive vice president and chief financial officer, becomes interim CEO while the search for a permanent successor proceeds.

What are the smuggling allegations?

The suspected spy, identified as Alice Huang, faces parallel scrutiny on several fronts:

• The Department of Justice is reportedly investigating whether entities associated with her tried to smuggle Super Micro Computer products to China.
• The DoJ is also said to lead a probe into her former company, Singapore-based Megaspeed International, over alleged smuggling of U.S.-made chips into China in violation of export restrictions. The company said it would cooperate.
• Singaporean officials opened an investigation into Alice Huang, Megaspeed and associated individuals last year.

Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs said on Thursday that police barred her from re-entering the country. They determined she knowingly offered inaccurate information to downplay her role in Megaspeed.

At the same time, the ministry found no case against her personally. "There was insufficient evidence to establish that Huang had committed any offences relating to the possible inaccurate declarations for which Megaspeed was being investigated," the ministry's statement said. The investigation into Megaspeed and six other individuals continues.

What does this change for NVIDIA?

For NVIDIA, the immediate question is leadership continuity. Kress takes over a company central to U.S. AI infrastructure while federal investigations touch its former chief and his alleged associate. A closed-door transcript, if released, would become the first public record of what Huang tells lawmakers about export controls and his personal conduct. Until then, investors, customers and regulators watch three probes — congressional, FBI and DoJ — converge on the same set of chip-export questions.