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Tech billionaire Jensen Huang and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have been summoned to testify before US lawmakers over the unfolding Nvidia scandal.
Huang resigned as CEO of the chipmaker on Thursday after recent reports revealed details of two extramarital affairs, including one with an alleged Chinese spy.
Congress is now calling for more clarity on the situation and what the Trump administration may have known about it.
“Recent reports raise serious concerns about our national security and the protection of sensitive U.S. technology,” Republican Sen. Tim Scott wrote in a post on social media.
“I am requesting that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick testify before the Senate Banking Committee,” he added. “The American people deserve answers.”
Scott, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, warned Huang that the committee was prepared to subpoena him should he fail to appear voluntarily.
Huang has also been summoned to appear before the House Committees on Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and China.
The three committees sent a letter to Huang on Thursday calling him to a “closed-door, transcribed interview” on 1 December.
“Failure to cooperate with this request will result in the House Foreign Affairs Committee issuing a subpoena to compel your testimony in a format of the committee’s choosing,” the chairmen wrote.
They gave him until 8pm EST on Friday to accept the request.
Huang’s decision to exit Nvidia 33 years after founding the company came as reports emerged that he had had a relationship with an executive at the firm. He had already been facing scrutiny over reports of an affair with Alice Huang, a suspected spy. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress has since taken over as interim CEO.
The New York Times reported in October that US intelligence officials had previously determined that a senior Chinese executive at a Singapore-based data centre known as Megaspeed had been delivering information to Beijing.
The exec, named as Alice Huang or Huang Le, was reportedly being monitored over possibly steering AI chips to China and had developed a close relationship with the former Nvidia chief.
China has pushed back at the spy plot allegations, calling them “purely unsubstantiated.”
Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Thursday that the US should “should stop fabricating the ‘Chinese spy’ narratives as a pretext for imposing technology restrictions.”
“China and the US maintain close communication on heads-of-state interactions,” she continued, adding that Beijing was ready to work with Washington to “jointly build a constructive relationship of strategic stability on the basis of respect, fairness, and reciprocity.”