Lutnick Reportedly Stalled Trump's Third NVIDIA Chip Diversion Crackdown
Axios reports Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick repeatedly stalled Trump's third crackdown on NVIDIA chip diversion to China. Lutnick has not been quoted on the record, and the account rests on sources.
Chips & Power DeskEdited by Ege Erten
2 min readAI-assisted
Follows our story: NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Faces Resignation Call From Sen. Kevin Cramer
NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra rack hardware, shown as an NVIDIA press image; it does not depict the specific chips in the diversion reports.
Image: NVIDIA
Source · Press image from the NVIDIA newsroom, used for news reporting.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick repeatedly stalled President Donald Trump's third crackdown this year on companies suspected of diverting NVIDIA chips to China, Axios reported on Nov. 11, 2026, citing sources; Reuters and CNBC carried the report.
According to Axios, Trump authorized the crackdown last Thursday, Nov. 5, after consulting Elon Musk. At a Situation Room meeting that day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly pressed Lutnick on Commerce's resistance to implementing the export controls. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Secretary of State Marco Rubio were also present. Lutnick appeared to agree but said he needed to check with Trump, Axios said. Neither Lutnick nor the White House has been quoted on the record in the coverage we found, and Voltgrid has not independently confirmed the account.
Reported sequence: the Nov 5 authorization came between a House request to Huang (Nov 4) and a board probe (Nov 8).
Illustration (AI-generated)
Why it matters for NVIDIA's China exposure
Enforcement against diversion runs through Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which licenses chip exports and polices resale through third countries. A stall inside Commerce therefore sits at the exact point where a crackdown would be written and enforced. For buyers and investors, the open question is whether NVIDIA accelerators routed through intermediaries such as Singapore-based buyers face new checks, and how quickly. Those flows are hard to measure from public data, so any tightening would show up first in licensing and shipment disclosures, not in reported revenue.
The political backdrop
The report lands in the middle of a week of pressure on NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang. Sen. Kevin Cramer called on Huang to resign on Nov. 10, as Voltgrid reported. NVIDIA's board opened an independent probe on Nov. 8, as we covered, after a New York Times report that a Chinese businesswoman close to Huang passed information to Beijing; those claims remain unproven, and NVIDIA and Megaspeed have denied misconduct.
On the same day as the Axios report, Reuters said House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast and two other House Republicans want Huang to testify. House China Committee Chairman John Moolenaar said Huang had until 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Nov. 11, to agree to a closed-door meeting or propose another date, and told Reuters he believed subpoenas would likely follow if he declined. No subpoena has been issued, and lawmakers need colleagues' support to issue one. Reuters also cited a person familiar with the talks as saying the lawmakers are unlikely to accept NVIDIA's general counsel in his place.
What is not confirmed yet
The Axios account rests on anonymous sourcing, and the White House and Commerce have not publicly set out what the crackdown contains or when it would start. It is not known whether the earlier crackdown authorizations this year, which Axios counts as two, led to any enforcement. The related China licensing questions are already open: Reuters reported that Beijing has held roughly 600,000 H200 chips in Hong Kong, as Voltgrid reported. To watch next: any Commerce or BIS statement, the outcome of the House deadline, and NVIDIA's next quarterly results.
