Bessent Faults Commerce Over Megaspeed Export Listing

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday that several federal agencies had supported adding Singapore-based Megaspeed to an export-control blacklist for months, but the Commerce Department had not acted. Bessent said Commerce controls the decision and questioned the department’s handling of the case.

Speaking on CNBC, Bessent said Treasury, the Pentagon, the State Department and the U.S. Trade Representative had favored placing Megaspeed on the entity list. The list restricts U.S. companies from doing business with designated organizations. Bessent said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s department “has the pen” and that questions about its internal process should be directed there.

Megaspeed, a cloud-computing company and Nvidia customer, is suspected of acquiring advanced chips for data centers in Southeast Asia and routing them to China. Reports cited by the sources said the company traded more than $4 billion worth of Nvidia chips over two years. The alleged diversion has not been established in the accounts, which do not provide evidence showing what Nvidia knew or how any chips may have reached China.

Bessent also questioned whether Nvidia had adequately vetted...