Nvidia’s general counsel invoked Trump to speed H200 China license terms, Semafor reports

Documented: On Nov. 13, 2026, Semafor reported that Nvidia general counsel Tim Teter, on a January call with more than a dozen officials drafting conditions for H200 exports to China, said he had been with President Trump and then-CEO Jensen Huang when they discussed the issue, and that the president “wants this to go fast.” People on the call went quiet, according to people with access to a detailed account of the call. Semafor said Teter called a proposed requirement that sellers know their cloud customers before shipment a “poison pill,” and that Nvidia pushed to raise know-your-customer vetting from a few thousand chips to the tens of thousands—billions of dollars of product—and to limit end-of-life conditions to chips already under export controls. In an exchange Semafor said it viewed, Teter accused drafters of misrepresenting Nvidia’s products and Trump’s policies and of failing to carry out the president’s agenda.

What is separately documented, not inferred from that call: In December 2025 Trump said the United States would allow H200 sales to China in exchange for a 25% fee, Reuters reported. On Jan. 13, 2026, Commerce formally eased the rule to case-by-case review, with third-party testing, a cap so China cannot receive more than half the volume sold to U.S. customers, and a requirement that Chinese buyers show security procedures and not use the chips for military purposes, Reuters reported. The Bureau of Industry and Security has said it is routine for agencies to negotiate license conditions with companies and that State, Defense, Energy, and Commerce sign off on final versions—an agency position Semafor included in its account.

Claimed, and contested: that invoking Trump on the January call actually changed the final license text. Semafor’s account is sourced to people familiar with the call and one exchange the outlet viewed; it does not publish the final redline or show which requested changes were adopted. Commerce’s public position is that company input is ordinary and multi-agency sign-off still applies.

The same lawyer’s name has already appeared in a separate enforcement dispute. The New York Times reported that in August 2025 Teter emailed BIS agents building a case against Singapore-based Megaspeed and said Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler had given Nvidia permission to reach out. Agents were alarmed; the Justice Department later asked Commerce to pause and took the matter as a criminal inquiry, the Times reported. A Commerce official told the Times that Kessler did not order information shared with Nvidia and told investigators to proceed by the book. Bloomberg, in a Nov. 9, 2026 account by Mackenzie Hawkins, reported that Teter had first called Kessler to ask whether BIS was involved in Singapore’s detention of Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, and that BIS staff were afterward told to route Nvidia-related outreach through Kessler—a step people familiar with the matter called unusual and unique to the chipmaker. Nvidia told Bloomberg that Teter did not know about Jensen Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang when he contacted Kessler, that the outreach was meant to help stop illegal transshipment, and that the company cut off sales and shipments to Megaspeed in June 2025. Bloomberg reported Malaysian trade records showing Megaspeed imported at least 17,544 GB300 processors, worth about $787 million, in November 2025, and that Nvidia’s accounting to the U.S. government of chips sold to Megaspeed through partners came up about 50,000 units short. Megaspeed has denied illegal diversion.

Alice Huang is described by U.S. officials, in reporting by the Times, Reuters, and others, as a suspected Chinese intelligence asset; she is not related to Jensen Huang. China has denied the espionage claims. Jensen Huang admitted an affair, Nvidia’s board opened an inquiry, and Semafor and The Hill reported that he was removed as CEO on Nov. 12, 2026, with CFO Colette Kress as interim. Reuters reported The Information’s claim that the relationship facilitated at least $7.5 billion in chip shipments to Chinese firms—an allegation, not a court finding. The Times reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed Trump on intelligence about the relationship and that Trump later said Huang told him he had “absolutely no idea” the woman was a spy and that Trump believed him. That is Trump’s account of a conversation, not an independent verification of Huang’s knowledge.

Institutional pushback is also on the record. On Nov. 12, ranking Democrats Ron Wyden and Richard Neal told Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick they were opening an inquiry into H200 license approvals and the 25% Section 232 tariff and asked that records of communications with or about Nvidia or Huang be preserved, The Hill reported. The New York Times reported that some Chinese firms cleared to handle H200s had vacant listed offices or ties to Entity List companies, including links analysts read as possible fronts. BIS has said it reviews applications for national-security risk. Semafor separately reported that Nvidia told congressional staff in 2025 that on-chip location tracking required by a proposed Chip Security Act could not be built and would create cyber vulnerabilities; the outlet said Nvidia later demonstrated and launched a tracking feature. That sequence is attributed to former staffers, not to a published technical audit.

Speculated, and not established by these reports: that personal access to the president replaced statutory export controls, or that the January call was the decisive cause of the H200 policy. What the documents and multi-outlet reporting do show is a narrower, sharper pattern—Nvidia’s top lawyer repeatedly citing senior political permission while conditions and an active smuggling inquiry were still being written, a licensing regime that collects a government cut on China-bound H200s, screening failures flagged by the Times, and a criminal case that left Commerce after the company’s own counsel named the official who oversees the bureau.