---
title: "Reports say Lutnick delayed Trump's Nvidia chip crackdown three times; the bill lands on Oracle"
description: "Trump backed Lutnick as \"transformative\" hours after Jensen Huang's exit, even as Axios and the FT report Commerce delayed the chip-diversion crackdown and the Megaspeed blacklist. The loophole is priced into Nvidia at 14x earnings; the bill will land on Oracle."
publisher: "The Inference"
section: "Policy & Labor"
published: 2026-11-12T18:25:30.925Z
modified: 2026-11-12T18:25:30.925Z
canonical: https://theinference.org/article/reports-say-lutnick-delayed-trump-s-nvidia-chip-crackdown-three-times-the-bill-lands-on-oracle
language: en
keywords: "Nvidia, Export Controls, Oracle, Commerce Department, AI Chips"
---

# Reports say Lutnick delayed Trump's Nvidia chip crackdown three times; the bill lands on Oracle

> Trump backed Lutnick as "transformative" hours after Jensen Huang's exit, even as Axios and the FT report Commerce delayed the chip-diversion crackdown and the Megaspeed blacklist. The loophole is priced into Nvidia at 14x earnings; the bill will land on Oracle.

## The White House picked its man hours after Nvidia lost its chief

[Jensen Huang](https://theinference.org/markets/people/jensen-huang) resigned as [Nvidia](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/nvidia) CEO on Thursday after revelations of an affair with Alice Huang, [a Singapore data-center executive suspected of being a Chinese spy](https://theinference.org/article/trump-knew-about-a-spy-next-to-nvidia-s-chief-and-chose-the-stock) [2]. Within hours, a White House official said Trump maintains "complete confidence" in Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, calling him "the most transformative Commerce Secretary in modern history" [1][2]. That is a strong sentence to publish the same week two outlets reported Lutnick's department sat on the very crackdown at the center of the scandal.

![Jensen Huang in a black jacket standing beside institute director Lê Nguyễn Thiên Nga in the atrium of Nvidia's Santa Clara headquarters](https://storage.googleapis.com/theinference-public/img/c4452a04875d096a.jpg)

*Jensen Huang, who resigned as Nvidia's chief executive on Thursday, with institute director Lê Nguyễn Thiên Nga at Nvidia headquarters in Santa Clara, 22 May 2026. (VQTCS via Wikimedia Commons)*

## Three sign-offs, three delays

[Axios reports](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/howard-lutnick-reportedly-delayed-nvidia-153651958.html) Trump approved restrictions on companies suspected of diverting Nvidia chips to China at least three times in 2026, and Lutnick delayed each one; the controls were still not in effect when the report published [7]. In a November 5 Situation Room meeting, Treasury Secretary Bessent challenged Lutnick over inaction on Megaspeed, the Singapore firm suspected of funneling more than $4 billion of Nvidia chips to China, and the Financial Times reports Commerce also delayed adding Megaspeed to the Entity List [1][7]. Singapore, meanwhile, declined to prosecute Alice Huang for lack of evidence and merely barred her from re-entering the country [5].

## Zero lost sales, one open loophole

Chris McGuire, a former NSC China official now at the Council on Foreign Relations, says [export controls have cost Nvidia](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/china-hawk-export-controls-cost-154411878.html) "exactly zero sales" [3]. China including Hong Kong brought Nvidia $19.7 billion of revenue in the year ended January 2026, down from $25.0 billion, and guidance now assumes no China data-center compute revenue at all [3].

*Chart: **Official China revenue fell to $19.7 billion while $80 billion of chips flowed to Southeast Asia** Bars showing Nvidia's China and Hong Kong revenue of $25.0 billion in fiscal 2025 and $19.7 billion in fiscal 2026, next to $80 billion of AI chips shipped to Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia in 2026.*

*Nvidia revenue from China including Hong Kong, fiscal years to January, from company reporting via Yahoo Finance [3]; the $80 billion is estimated 2026 trade flows of AI chips to Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia cited by former NSC official Chris McGuire, an estimate not a reported Nvidia figure [3]. [3]*

But $80 billion of AI chips flowed to Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia this year, roughly half of all AI chips shipped outside the US, much of it rented to Chinese buyers through cloud deals [3]. Congress is likely to attach chip provisions to this year's defense bill, and Commerce's rule extending controls to seven more countries could come this month [3][2].

## The payer is not Nvidia

Sold-out Nvidia at 14x forward earnings can find other buyers for any chip a Chinese renter loses [3]. [Oracle](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/oracle) cannot. Its consensus path to $132 billion of fiscal-2028 revenue, up from $67.4 billion, leans on Chinese cloud offtakers, and the administration has already forced it to [cancel a $7 billion Tencent deal](https://www.networkworld.com/article/4246940/oracle-cancels-7-billion-tencent-ai-chip-deal.html) covering about 100,000 Nvidia chips in Southeast Asia [3][6]. Chinese AI firms are now scrambling for overseas capacity, and [Alibaba](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/alibaba) shares fell 6.83% on the tighter-curbs fear [4].

*Chart: **Oracle must nearly double revenue by fiscal 2028 to hit consensus** Column chart of Oracle annual revenue from fiscal 2022 to fiscal 2026, rising from $42.4 billion to $67.4 billion, beside a fiscal 2028 consensus figure of $132 billion.*

*Oracle revenue by fiscal year, reported figures from its SEC filings [8]; the fiscal 2028 figure is the $132 billion consensus the draft cites, up from $67.4 billion in fiscal 2026 [3]. [8][3]*

The enforcement gap is priced into Oracle. Watch whether Commerce's rule lands this month and whether Lutnick survives his own subpoena risk [2][3].

## Takeaway

A crackdown Trump approved three times still has not shipped, so the $80 billion Southeast Asia route stays open and the risk lands on Oracle's $132 billion revenue plan rather than on Nvidia's 14x multiple.

## Sources

1. [Bloomberg, Trump Backs Lutnick Despite Uproar Over Nvidia Chip Controls, 12 November 2026](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-12/trump-backs-lutnick-despite-uproar-over-nvidia-chip-controls)
2. [Seeking Alpha, Washington weighs in on Huang's resignation from Nvidia, 12 November 2026](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4671511-washington-weighs-in-on-huangs-resignation-from-nvidia)
3. [Yahoo Finance, China Hawk: Export Controls Have Cost Nvidia Exactly Zero Sales, 12 November 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/china-hawk-export-controls-cost-154411878.html)
4. [Seeking Alpha, Chinese AI firms scramble for Nvidia chips amid fears of tighter US curbs, 12 November 2026](https://seekingalpha.com/news/4671527-chinese-ai-firms-scramble-for-nvidia-chips-amid-fears-of-tighter-us-curbs-report)
5. [Bloomberg, Singapore Bars Alice Huang, Finds No Evidence for Prosecution in Spy Case, 12 November 2026](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-12/singapore-says-warns-alice-huang-lacks-evidence-of-offenses)
6. [Network World, Oracle cancels $7 billion Tencent AI chip deal, 10 November 2026](https://www.networkworld.com/article/4246940/oracle-cancels-7-billion-tencent-ai-chip-deal.html)
7. [Yahoo News, Howard Lutnick Reportedly Delayed Nvidia Chip Export Controls Three Times Despite Trump Sign-Offs, 12 November 2026](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/howard-lutnick-reportedly-delayed-nvidia-153651958.html)
8. [Oracle, annual figures from its SEC filings, retrieved 12 November 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001341439)


---

Reports say Lutnick delayed Trump's Nvidia chip crackdown three times; the bill lands on Oracle — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/reports-say-lutnick-delayed-trump-s-nvidia-chip-crackdown-three-times-the-bill-lands-on-oracle