Lutnick stalled Trump's crackdown on Nvidia chip diversion to China, Axios reports

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has repeatedly held up export controls on companies suspected of diverting Nvidia AI chips to China, even though President Trump approved action in May, August and on Nov. 5, Axios reports, citing six high-level sources. At a Situation Room meeting last Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pressed Lutnick over why Megaspeed, the company at the center of the Nvidia spy scandal, had not been restricted. After consulting Elon Musk in the Oval Office, Trump ordered the curbs to go ahead over Lutnick's warning that they would start a trade war, but the controls still have not been imposed. The Commerce Department denied that Bessent confronted Lutnick.