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The most valuable company in the world is now at the centre of one of the strangest stories in the chip war. According to reports from The New York Times via NDTV Profit and Firstpost, Nvidia's general counsel contacted US Commerce Department investigators who were examining whether a Singapore data centre company, Megaspeed, smuggled restricted Nvidia AI chips into China. Shortly afterwards, the investigation was halted and the case was transferred to the Justice Department, which is now pursuing a criminal inquiry.
What Nvidia's lawyer did
The Times reported that Nvidia general counsel Tim Teter emailed Commerce investigators in August 2025 seeking information about the Megaspeed investigation, writing that Jeff Kessler, the Commerce official overseeing export controls, had authorised him to make contact. Investigators declined his request for a meeting. Bloomberg reported separately that Teter had phoned Kessler in late summer 2025 to ask whether the department's enforcement arm was involved in Singapore's detention of Megaspeed executive Alice Huang — it was not. After the contact, staff on the case were reportedly told to route Nvidia-related requests through Kessler and not to mention Megaspeed or its Malaysian unit, Speedmatrix, in external communications. The Justice Department later asked Commerce to pause its work and transfer the case. Federal authorities are now pursuing a criminal investigation into Megaspeed.
Why this case matters so much
Megaspeed is not a minor player. US authorities suspect it of acting as a front to move billions of dollars' worth of advanced Nvidia AI equipment through Malaysia and into China, in breach of US export controls. The company imported billions of dollars' worth of Nvidia AI equipment into Malaysia while building data centres across Southeast Asia. Its managing director between March and November 2023 was Huang Le — the Chinese name of Alice Huang, the woman US intelligence believes is a Chinese spy and with whom Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang admitted on Sunday he had an extramarital affair. President Donald Trump on Monday said he believed Huang had no idea who his partner was. Nvidia's board has launched an independent investigation, and the company's shares fell more than 4% as the details emerged. Bloomberg's analysis of trade records also found Nvidia's tallies to the US government undercounted chips sold to Megaspeed through hardware partners by about 50,000 units, worth billions of dollars.
What is — and is not — proven
The reporting is careful on the most important point. The Times found no evidence that Kessler ordered investigators to stop, and the reported sequence does not establish that Nvidia secured favourable treatment or that its outreach caused the transfer. Nvidia says Teter did not know of Huang's affair when he called, that its outreach to officials is routine, and that it cooperates to prevent illegal chip smuggling. Megaspeed denies smuggling and says inspections by US and Malaysian authorities, as well as Nvidia, found no evidence of violations. What is established is the sequence: a call and an email from Nvidia's top lawyer, an internal alarm inside the Commerce Department, and then a case that Commerce investigators had spent months building moving out of their hands. That sequence is now part of a criminal investigation — and of the board inquiry into the chief executive of the company at the heart of the AI boom. For the background to the affair and the board probe, see our earlier report on Nvidia's CEO admitting the affair and the board investigation and Apple's push for an AI agent under its next chief.