Trump Authorizes Action for Third Time in 2026 Over Nvidia Chip Diversions to China
Key Facts
U.S. President Donald Trump authorized action against companies suspected of diverting Nvidia’s advanced artificial intelligence chips to China for the third time in 2026, in a move that had not become effective restrictions by the time Axios published its report on November 11. The outlet said the latest approval was issued on November 5, after Trump consulted Elon Musk, while MegaSpeed, the company at the center of the matter, remained under discussion within the administration. The account points to a gap between the president’s approval of action and its administrative implementation, as the case focuses on preventing advanced U.S. chips from reaching China through suspected diversions. Axios sources said the decision had been made, but the practical steps had not been carried out. The report was based on interviews with six senior sources who were briefed on the discussions or heard some of them.
The three approvals date to May, August and then November 5, according to Axios, making the latest the third time Trump approved action during the year against suspected diversions of Nvidia chips. The outlet said the president decided to proceed with the words, "Let's do it," but Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested, after leaving the Oval Office, preparing options and returning to the matter later. Axios quoted one source as saying the proposal caused a further delay, while another source said implementation had not happened. Presidential approval alone does not mean the company was placed on the Entity List or that restrictions took effect; subsequent measures remained subject to disagreement and delay. Political approval was thus repeated over several months, while the executive action intended to translate it into actual controls remained incomplete.
The dispute came to the fore at a Situation Room meeting, where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Lutnick over the Commerce Department’s resistance to applying export controls, particularly in relation to MegaSpeed, according to the account from sources cited by Axios. A Commerce Department spokeswoman denied that such a confrontation between the two secretaries had taken place. The conflicting accounts put the administration’s handling of the company at the center of the discussion, alongside the delay in implementing the presidential approval. A White House official told Axios that Trump still trusted Lutnick and his ability to do his job. Meanwhile, the outlet reported that the administration was facing scrutiny from members of Congress over its handling of concerns about chip diversions to China.
The importance of the issue extends beyond the company itself to China’s access to artificial intelligence accelerators. An estimate by IDC, cited by Reuters in October, indicated that Nvidia accounted for 34% of AI accelerator shipments in China during the first half of 2026. In a separate disclosure, Nvidia said it was effectively excluded from the Chinese data center market. The estimate measures a share of shipments, while the disclosure describes the company’s position in the data center market; neither, on its own, provides evidence of the route by which processors reached users. This background highlights the importance of investigating suspected diversions, while determining how the chips reached China remains separate from shipment figures and the company’s presence in the data center market.
In the market, Nvidia shares closed at $186.64 on November 6, then at $178.67 on November 9 and $168.89 on November 10, according to EL7 data. The closing price rose to $173.73 on November 11 before recording $166.19 on November 12. The Associated Press said the stock initially fell 14% on Thursday, November 12, following the resignation of its CEO, Jensen Huang, before quickly paring losses. The outlet linked the initial drop to the resignation and did not attribute the share move to the chip-diversion case. The closing prices show the stock’s movement over five sessions, while the reaction described in the outlet’s report remains tied to Huang’s resignation.
On the political front, U.S. Senator Michael Bennet asked the administration for information about its handling of concerns over the diversion of AI chips to China, and his published letter set November 24, 2026, as the deadline for a written response. Among other things, the request called for consideration of action against MegaSpeed, such as placing it on the Entity List, and for engagement with Southeast Asian governments over potential export-control violations. The letter keeps the company under congressional scrutiny but does not determine the investigation’s outcome or impose action on its own. The requested response deadline falls after the latest presidential approval on November 5, while Axios reported that implementation had not occurred by the time its report was published. The next steps therefore remain split between the administration’s response to Bennet’s questions and completion of the executive measures that stalled after the May, August and November approvals.