Bessent tells Nvidia to hire an outside CEO: "dramatic shakeup" needed days before earnings

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that Nvidia needs a "dramatic shakeup" and that its board should hire its next chief executive from outside the company, according to CNBC. Reuters, the Financial Times and Bloomberg also ran the story. Bessent spoke in an interview on Fox News.

Jensen Huang resigned Thursday. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress is interim CEO. Bessent's comments go well beyond Huang: he said other executives should face scrutiny over compliance with U.S. export controls.

What he said

Bessent questioned whether Nvidia was "pressing these seemingly illicit sales to goose their revenues and their earnings," CNBC reported. He compared the situation to banking: "If this were a bank and they hadn't complied like this, the OCC would be in there right now, and a lot of the executives would be removed." The OCC is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a bank regulator. Nvidia is not a bank and no such regulator oversees it, so the comparison is rhetoric, not a statement of legal authority.

He also pointed to a surge in Nvidia's reported Singapore revenue while its China sales fell. CNBC notes that Nvidia stopped reporting Singapore revenue separately in November 2025, saying a new method based on customers' headquarters rather than billing addresses better reflected where its sales go. Bessent did not allege a specific violation in the remarks CNBC quoted, and we have not seen Nvidia respond to this interview.

The number behind the timing

Nvidia is scheduled to report its first quarterly results since Huang left on Tuesday, Nov. 17, according to CNBC. The stock closed Friday at $162.85, 31.9% below its Oct. 6 peak by our chart data. We covered the options market's expected earnings move in our earlier story.

A feud inside the administration

The remarks come amid open friction between Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over Megaspeed, the Singapore cloud firm suspected of diverting Nvidia chips to China. Two days earlier Bessent told CNBC that several agencies had backed adding Megaspeed to the export blacklist for months, "but Commerce has the pen." Commerce denied an Axios report that the two clashed in the Situation Room. See our Nov. 13 report and Megaspeed's own statement.

CNBC also reported that Bessent said President Trump has drawn a firm line against selling China chips more advanced than Nvidia's H200. Trump authorized H200 sales to approved Chinese customers in December under an arrangement giving the U.S. government a 25% cut.

What it means for holders and Nvidia's customers

• Shareholders: a cabinet member publicly urging an outsider CEO raises the pressure on the board's search. Reuters has not reported any board decision, and the board has not commented in the coverage we read.
• Earnings: the call will be the first chance for analysts to ask Kress about Singapore and China revenue and compliance controls.
• Customers and suppliers: cloud and AI firms that buy or resell Nvidia chips face more know-your-customer scrutiny, whatever the board does.

Sources: CNBC, with Reuters, Financial Times and Bloomberg reporting on the same remarks; price data via Yahoo Finance. This is market information, not investment advice.