CORPORATE MIDTERM ARBITRAGE WASHINGTON - The results of the US midterm elections delivered the once unthinkable: After several pivotal flips, Democrats will soon control the governors' offices of 9 of the 10 largest state economies. Republican-imposed business-friendly policies that attracted Elon Musk and others to move their corporate empires to Texas from California, however, won't just fade away. For decades, Republican governors crowed that their states were magnets for investment. They painted California, New York, and Illinois — longtime Democratic strongholds — as high tax, crime-ridden, and hostile to innovation. They’ve often succeeded: of late, the list includes software company Palantir(PLTR.O) and hedge fund Citadel relocating to Florida, ditching Colorado and Illinois, respectively. Corporations' first reason for transferring headquarters was to consolidate operations, per a CBRE survey followed closely by lower taxes and a cheaper cost of living. Thei...
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White House weighs Lutnick's ouster after Nvidia scandal US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick attends an event at Sparrows Point Shipyard, in Baltimore County, Maryland, US, October 6, 2026. REUTERS/Eric Lee Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab WASHINGTON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Senior White House officials are discussing whether Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick should be pushed out amid a spy scandal surrounding Nvidia's (NVDA.O) now-former CEO Jensen Huang, two people familiar with the situation said on Thursday. A growing number of lawmakers criticized Lutnick for the administration's refusal to add dozens of Chinese companies to a key US trade blacklist, and over whether the government was properly overseeing Nvidia's exports to China. Make sense of global markets with the Trading Day newsletter. Sign up here. Criticism of Lutnick's actions predates Thursday's resignation of Huang, who said he would step down as CEO of the leading AI chipmaker afte...
Opinion | The Huang honey-trap scandal sends a warning about chip exports The incident has spurred bipartisan scrutiny. The Republican chairs of three House committees have asked Huang to appear for a closed-door briefing, and Huang agreed to testify . House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (New York) said Trump administration officials would brief high-ranking members of the House and Senate from both parties, known as the Gang of Eight. The Huang scandal underscores why Washington cannot leave chipmakers to police their own sales to China. Over the course of this Congress, lawmakers have examined how Chinese companies evade American chip controls . This year’s defense bill gives them a chance to close the gaps they uncovered. Congressional investigations have found that Chinese companies smuggle advanced chips through middlemen , remotely access American chips in overseas data centers and buy chipmaking equipment from foreign suppliers operating under weaker rules. American...
Opinion | The Nvidia scandal is about more than sex and spies Huang’s Chinese paramour, Alice Huang (no relation), was an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company that acquired more than $4.6 billion in Nvidia hardware in less than three years. U.S. authorities have long suspected Megaspeed of diverting chips to China. Those suspicions were aired in the press over a year ago . Both Megaspeed and Nvidia denied wrongdoing, with Nvidia insisting that its own inspections found no evidence of diversion. Four federal departments — State, Defense, Energy and Treasury — supported blacklisting Megaspeed , but Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been dragging his heels for months. Axios reported on Wednesday that several administration officials confronted Lutnick in the White House Situation Room last week, demanding he push through the restrictions on Megaspeed. When Lutnick argued that such a move could antagonize China, according to the report, they took the debate to the ...
U.S. did little to help Singapore investigate alleged Chinese spy, officials say The news, coming just hours after Jensen Huang stepped down, provides fresh fuel for congressional demands for an investigation into his activities and his relationship with the White House. U.S. and Singaporean authorities were monitoring Megaspeed International, Alice Huang’s firm, as early as June 2025 on suspicions that the Singapore-based tech company was illegally rerouting high-end Nvidia chips to China in violation of American export controls. The chips are critical to developing artificial intelligence models. Singapore impounded Alice Huang’s passport in June 2025 as part of the investigation, Singaporean authorities said in a press release. But when the Singapore government reached out to the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI in September 2025 to ascertain whether Megaspeed was falsifying customs declarations, it said, the Americans did little to help. “Singapore has to date received lim...
Bessent blames Commerce for not restricting Nvidia customer’s chip exports Officials at the Treasury Department, the Pentagon and the State Department wanted to put restrictions on Megaspeed for months, “but Commerce has the pen,” and did not add the company to the export control list, Bessent said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “You will have to have to ask them about their internal processes,” Bessent said. Generally, the Commerce Department is charged with managing exports of sensitive U.S. technologies. Commerce had been investigating whether Singapore-based Megaspeed was routing Nvidia’s cutting-edge chips to Chinese firms in breach of U.S. export restrictions. Bessent’s comments mark the first time Bessent has publicly attacked the agency run by Howard Lutnick, after revelations that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had an affair with Megaspeed employee and suspected Chinese spy Alice Huang. Huang resigned Thursday amid reports of two affairs that included a woman suspected of being a Chin...
NVIDIA'S OTHER RISKS NEW YORK - Nvidia (NVDA.O) has lost its leather-jacketed CEO, and vaporized $1.3 trillion. That’s the decline in the company’s value between the first report in late October of founder Jensen Huang having a close relationship with a suspected Chinese spy, and Thursday’s announcement that he was stepping down as boss and from the board of directors. To put that figure in context, it’s effectively discounting the loss of all possible sales to Beijing and more. Whether that fairly accounts for longer-term risks from Huang's departure is less clear. Seven percent of revenue from the first six months of the company’s current fiscal year came from China and Hong Kong. That amount has declined, as US export restrictions have clamped tighter. The relevant question, however, is how much of sales to other regions actually end up in the People's Republic. Scrutiny over firms like Singapore-based Megaspeed could result in gray market, or clearly illicit avenues...