Jensen Huang's resignation has turned Nvidia's scandal into a wider test of Trump's judgment. The president called Huang on Tuesday to urge him to keep fighting for his job, then floated Tim Cook as Nvidia's next CEO after Huang stepped down; aides say Trump saw Nvidia as too big to fail, and Trump now says Huang called him to express remorse over the toll the scandal took on his family. The White House is now discussing whether to push out Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who lawmakers say took a softer line on Nvidia and Megaspeed as calls for tougher chip controls grew; New York Times reporting says the closeness of Trump and Lutnick to Huang made officials wary of taking aggressive steps on chip sales to Asia, and Bloomberg reports Lutnick's Commerce Department is under scrutiny over whether it did enough to keep AI chips out of China's hands. Democrats have launched a second investigation and a scathing letter on Huang's 'scheme' with Trump, while Huang is expected to testify before Congress by Thanksgiving behind closed doors. DOJ's Todd Blanche says the department has not concluded Alice Huang was a Chinese spy but the FBI is investigating, even as OpenAI backs a bipartisan push to curb China's access to AI chips and former officials argue Congress should focus on whether export controls are actually enforced. The episode leaves Trump exposed to charges that he protected a donor and friend rather than enforce export controls, and the fallout is shadowing his coming meeting with Xi Jinping.
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