TDFP Investigation: Lutnick's Commerce Has Added No One to the Entity List in 13 Months

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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is under fire from Republicans and Democrats in Congress over his department's handling of export controls on advanced AI chips, and the White House says President Trump is standing by him. The Digital Free Press read the Federal Register, Commerce Department releases, congressional letters and Nvidia's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to check what the department has actually done.

The main finding: the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which runs the Entity List, the U.S. trade blacklist, has published 16 rule documents in the Federal Register since Oct. 9, 2025. None of them adds a company to the Entity List. The three that change the list only remove names or addresses. Megaspeed, the Singapore-based Nvidia customer at the center of this week's criticism, does not appear in any Federal Register document, according to a full-text search by TDFP.

What the Critics Say

The criticism centers on Megaspeed. In an Oct. 13, 2025 letter, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked Lutnick to investigate the company, which he called "a spin-off of Chinese government-owned cloud company 7Road," saying it had received billions of dollars in U.S. chips. In a Nov. 11, 2026 letter, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) wrote that Megaspeed "has purchased more than $4.8 billion of NVIDIA's advanced AI chips since June 2024" and asked Commerce, the State Department and the White House to preserve all records on chip exports to China, including records on "proposed additions of Megaspeed" to the Entity List.

The senators wrote that Jensen Huang has publicly acknowledged a close personal relationship with a Megaspeed executive, and cited New York Times reporting that U.S. intelligence identified that executive, Alice Huang, as a suspected Chinese intelligence operative. Nvidia's board accepted Jensen Huang's resignation on Nov. 11, according to the company's Nov. 12 SEC filing, which gives no reason. Megaspeed has denied wrongdoing and called itself "a compliant and legal company," Quartz reported.

Republicans have joined in. "The obvious question is why did he choose to sell advanced chips?" Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told Politico on Wednesday. "Secretary Lutnick needs to answer that in front of God and country." "I don't think he's been very responsive," Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) told Politico, calling on Lutnick to testify. On Nov. 5, House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast, China Select Committee Chairman John Moolenaar and Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford asked Jensen Huang to brief their committees on Nov. 18.

Axios reported Wednesday, citing six sources, that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Lutnick in a Nov. 5 Situation Room meeting over why Megaspeed had not been restricted, and that Lutnick warned tougher controls "will start a trade war with China." The New York Times also reported the confrontation, and reported that Lutnick told Bessent Commerce "could now move quickly" to restrict Megaspeed. A Commerce spokeswoman denied the exchange took place, both outlets reported. Axios also reported that Trump approved action against suspected chip diversion in May, August and on Nov. 5, and that "it still hasn't happened." TDFP could not independently confirm what was said in those meetings.

What the Documents Show: 16 Rule Documents, No Entity List Additions

Federal Register records show the last Entity List additions were published Oct. 9, 2025: 29 entries in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Since then, BIS removed one Chinese entity and six aliases on Nov. 12, 2025, then removed a Turkish entity and two Hong Kong addresses on Aug. 24, 2026. No additions followed. Reuters reported in June that the administration had held off blacklisting the Chinese AI company DeepSeek and more than 100 other firms flagged as security risks.

The records also show a second rule that has not taken effect. On Sept. 30, 2025, BIS issued the "Affiliates Rule," which would put any company at least 50% owned by a listed entity under the same restrictions. BIS called it "a marked improvement" for addressing "diversion concerns." The Nov. 1, 2025 White House fact sheet on the trade deal with China said the U.S. would suspend the rule for one year, and BIS published the suspension on Nov. 12, 2025. That rule said the Affiliates Rule would return on Nov. 10, 2026 and stay "indefinitely."

It did not return. A new BIS rule signed by Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler extends the suspension to Jan. 10, 2027. The document's filing stamp reads "Filed 11-5-26; 4:15 pm," the same day as the Situation Room meeting Axios and the Times described. The rule's only stated reasoning is one sentence: "BIS is extending the suspension until January 10, 2027." The law firm Nixon Peabody wrote that the new date "tracks the extended US-China trade truce."

On sales, BIS changed its review policy on Jan. 15, 2026 for Nvidia's H200 and similar chips headed to China from "a presumption of denial to a case-by-case review," with conditions including third-party testing in the U.S. In July, a separate rule gave the UAE government and approved UAE companies "license-free access to advanced computing items." The administration announced in May 2025 that it would rescind and replace the Biden-era AI diffusion rule, but Nvidia's Aug. 26, 2026 quarterly report still described its replacement as "forthcoming," and TDFP found no replacement rule in the Federal Register.

What Lutnick Said, and What the Record Shows

In a July 2025 CNBC interview, Lutnick said China was getting Nvidia's "fourth best" chip and that "you want to sell the Chinese enough that their developers get addicted to the American technology stack," Business Insider and CNBC reported. He also linked renewed sales of Nvidia's H20 chip to a rare-earth magnets deal with China, according to CNBC and a Financial Times report cited in the Warren-Coons letter.

At an April 22, 2026 Senate hearing, Lutnick told Coons, "We have not sold them any chips as of yet," CNBC reported. Reuters quoted him saying China's government "has not let them, as of yet, buy the chips." Coons later wrote that Lutnick's statements "appear to contradict" Jensen Huang's March remarks about approvals. Nvidia's own filing backs Lutnick on that point: its May 20, 2026 quarterly report said licenses for "small amounts of H200 products" began in February 2026 and that "to date, we have not generated any revenue under the H200 licensing program." By its Aug. 26 report, Nvidia said it had "made a fraction of the allowed shipments," which made up less than 1% of data center revenue, and that the chips carry a 25% U.S. tariff.

The same May filing says that after H20 licenses were granted starting in August 2025, administration officials "expressed an expectation that the USG will receive 15% or more of the revenue generated from licensed sales," but "the USG did not publish a regulation codifying such requirement."

On enforcement, Reuters reported Wednesday that procurement records show Northwestern Polytechnical University, on the Entity List since 2001, bought two H200 chips in October through a Chinese supplier. In March, Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Warren asked Lutnick to pause and review Nvidia licenses after the Justice Department charged three people linked to Supermicro with allegedly conspiring to export about $510 million in servers with restricted Nvidia chips to China.

What Commerce and the White House Say

A White House official told reporter Shelby Talcott, who posted the statement on X late Wednesday, that "President Trump maintains complete confidence in the secretary," calling Lutnick "a champion of President Trump's America First trade and tariff policies, which have secured almost 20 fair trade deals and trillions in manufacturing investments." That is the White House's claim, not verified by TDFP.

When BIS opened H200 sales, Kessler said "permitting the sale of the H200 to China under controlled conditions will strengthen the American technology ecosystem," and the rule said the change was "necessary to ensure the national security benefits of U.S. leadership" in AI. In June, BIS told Reuters it uses tools "including the Entity List ... on a daily basis to ensure we are combating bad actors." This week, a BIS spokesperson told Bloomberg that "BIS enforces aggressively across the board, including with respect to chip smuggling, and enforcement is at an all-time high." A Commerce spokeswoman told the Times that decisions on adding companies to the Entity List are made across the administration.

Timeline

Oct. 9, 2025: Last Entity List additions published.

Oct. 13, 2025: Cotton asks Lutnick to investigate Megaspeed.

Nov. 12, 2025: BIS suspends the Affiliates Rule for one year after the China trade deal.

Jan. 15, 2026: H200 exports to China move to case-by-case review.

April 22, 2026: Lutnick tells senators no H200s have been sold to China.

Aug. 26, 2026: Nvidia reports a fraction of allowed H200 shipments.

Nov. 5, 2026: House chairmen ask Jensen Huang to brief Congress; Situation Room meeting; BIS files the extension rule at 4:15 p.m.

Nov. 9, 2026: Extension published; Affiliates Rule stays frozen to Jan. 10, 2027.

Nov. 11, 2026: Warren and Coons demand records; Axios and Politico report Republican criticism; the White House says Trump has "complete confidence" in Lutnick.

Nov. 12, 2026: Nvidia's SEC filing reports Jensen Huang's resignation.

As of Thursday, the Federal Register showed no pending BIS document adding Megaspeed or anyone else to the Entity List.

The Digital Free Press