Nvidia Corp.’s general counsel intervened in a US government probe of suspected smuggling of AI chips by Megaspeed International, questioning whether the Trump administration played a role in detaining an executive from the Singapore-based firm who’s now at the heart of a scandal threatening Jensen Huang .
In late summer 2025, Nvidia’s Tim Teter called Commerce Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler, who oversees US chip export curbs, to ask about the Megaspeed investigation, according to people familiar with the matter.
The New York Times reported earlier on Teter’s outreach to BIS employees and their exchange with Kessler. Singapore police had brought Alice in for questioning and restricted her from leaving the country. That BIS employee declined the meeting, and Teter responded that he didn’t understand why his request was spurned, since Kessler had granted him permission to communicate with BIS employees. It’s unclear exactly what Teter wanted to discuss with these individuals. Thank you. “BIS enforces aggressively across the board, including with respect to chip smuggling, and enforcement is at an all-time high. It’s an extraordinary episode that raises questions about Nvidia’s ability to influence US investigations into breaches of China chip curbs, as well as what exactly Teter sought to do with any additional information about Alice’s detention in Singapore. Despite that stance, in the months after Teter’s initial call with Kessler, Nvidia gave BIS an incomplete account of its business with Megaspeed.
The employees forwarded the email to Kessler, who told them hours later to continue handling the case by the book, to which the employees responded: “10-4. After several visits to Megaspeed’s data centers — 12 facilities owned by eight companies across three countries in Southeast Asia — Nvidia had sent inventory checks to the agency and declared to Bloomberg News in mid-November 2025 that everything was where it should be.
Specifically, Teter wanted to know whether Kessler’s Bureau of Industry and Security was involved in the Singapore government’s recent detention of Alice Huang , a Megaspeed executive, according to the people. BIS was not involved in that action, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity owing to the sensitivity of the matter. Teter, meanwhile, reached out directly to the agency’s staff, including requesting a meeting with one of them, according to some of the people. Kessler didn’t otherwise weigh in on how the employees should proceed with the case, according to one of the people. “BIS conducts all enforcement strictly by the book,” a spokesperson for the agency said.
