Nvidia has reported $9.66 million of in-house federal lobbying expenses over the seven quarters since it registered to lobby on its own behalf in March 2025, by our arithmetic from its quarterly LD-2 reports in the Lobbying Disclosure Act database. All seven reports list export controls under the trade issue. In the first nine months of 2026 the company reported $4.69 million, about 34% more than the $3.51 million of the same months of 2025 and already 94% of its 2025 total of $4.97 million.
The Information reported on Wednesday, in a post on X promoting an exclusive, that “Jensen Huang has spent 2 years lobbying the Trump administration to loosen export controls on AI chip sales to China”. The disclosure forms do not record which side a company takes on an issue; they show what it spent, which issues and bills it listed and which agencies it contacted.
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The key insight: Nvidia’s own LD-2 reports add up to $9.66 million of federal lobbying expenses over the seven quarters from January 2025 to September 2026, by our arithmetic, using amended figures where filed. Every one of the seven lists export controls under trade, and the first nine months of 2026, at $4.69 million, ran about 34% above the same months of 2025.
Nvidia filed its own lobbying registration on 31 March 2025, listing “trade and export control measures” among its issues. Its quarterly reports since then show expenses of $940,000 for the first quarter of 2025, $620,000 for the second, $1.95 million for the third and $1.46 million for the fourth, using the amended figures where the company filed an amendment. The amendments raised the third quarter from $1.90 million and the fourth from $1.44 million.
In 2026 the reports show $1.29 million for the first quarter, $1.25 million for the second and $2.15 million for the third, the highest of the seven, as our 21 October piece on the Q3 report found. The third-quarter figure is about 2.3 times the first, by our arithmetic.
Nvidia’s in-house federal lobbying expenses per quarter, as reported on its LD-2 filings in the Lobbying Disclosure Act database; amended figures where filed. The seven-quarter total is our arithmetic.
From Two Outside Firms to Five
Before the in-house registration, the 2023 and 2024 reports we pulled for Nvidia as a client come from two outside firms, Tiber Creek Group and The Nickles Group. Those firms reported $510,000 of income from Nvidia in 2023 and $640,000 in 2024, by our arithmetic from their quarterly reports.
Three more firms registered for Nvidia in August 2025: Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, The Vogel Group and BGR Government Affairs. The five outside firms reported $1.03 million from Nvidia in 2025 and $1.35 million in the first nine months of 2026, by our arithmetic. The Vogel Group filed a termination report for the third quarter of 2026. The outside firms report on their own forms, so we show their figures beside Nvidia’s and do not add the two.
What the Reports List
Nvidia’s trade entry for the third quarter of 2026 lists the Chip Security Act, the AI OVERWATCH Act, the Remote Access Security Act and the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, followed by “Export controls, including implementation of P.L. 115-232 Export Control Reform Act (integrated circuits (ICs) specific provisions); amendments to Export Administration Regulations (EAR)”. The Chip Security Act first appears in the second-quarter 2025 report, and the AI OVERWATCH Act and the Remote Access Security Act in the first-quarter 2026 report.
The trade entry names the Commerce Department, the Treasury, the National Economic Council, the National Security Council, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the House and the Senate as the bodies contacted. The Nickles Group’s third-quarter 2026 report for Nvidia lists the White House Office alongside the House and the Senate.
Where This Meets the House Request
Three House committee chairs have asked for a closed-door briefing on 18 November, with a reply requested by 11 November, as covered in our piece on the subpoena signal. POLITICO has reported that the AI OVERWATCH Act and the Chip Security Act, both listed in Nvidia’s reports, are among three chip-export bills under consideration for the National Defense Authorization Act.
The Structural Read
As we read the filings, the change is in structure as well as size: the 2023 and 2024 reports we pulled for Nvidia as a client came from two outside firms, at $510,000 and $640,000 a year by our arithmetic; since 2025 Nvidia reports its own lobbying and has used up to five outside firms, whose reported income from Nvidia reached $1.35 million in the first nine months of 2026.
The Information, post on X, 11 Nov 2026
“Jensen Huang has spent 2 years lobbying the Trump administration to loosen export controls on AI chip sales to China”
Three Implications
FOR THE TOTAL $9.66 million of in-house lobbying expenses in seven quarters, by our arithmetic, with the third quarter of 2026, at $2.15 million, the highest.
FOR THE PACE $4.69 million in January to September 2026, about 34% above $3.51 million in the same months of 2025 and 94% of the 2025 total of $4.97 million, by our arithmetic.
FOR THE ISSUES The third-quarter 2026 trade entry lists the Chip Security Act, the AI OVERWATCH Act, the Remote Access Security Act and the fiscal 2027 defense bill, plus export controls.
The framework describes the governance layer this way: “It is where decisions are made about who gets access to frontier intelligence, under what conditions, and for which purposes.”
As we read it, export controls are that layer applied to chips, and seven quarters of filings that list export controls every time put a dollar figure on one company’s presence there. The framework was published in June 2026 and does not discuss these filings.
Nvidia’s own LD-2 lobbying expenses and outside lobbying firms’ reported income from Nvidia, millions of dollars per year; 2026 is January to September. The two are reported on separate forms and are not added together. Source: Lobbying Disclosure Act database; yearly sums are our arithmetic.
What Is Not Established
The LD-2 reports record issues, bills and agencies, not positions, so they do not show what Nvidia asked for on each bill. We read The Information’s post and headline page; the full article is paywalled and we did not read it, so we cannot say what its two-year account draws on. Quarterly totals are the amounts the filers reported; the forms do not itemise how the in-house total is spent. Nvidia was not contacted for this piece.
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Nvidia’s own reports add up to $9.66 million of lobbying expenses in seven quarters, by our arithmetic, with export controls listed in every one, and its 2026 spending through September is about 34% ahead of the same months of 2025.
A note on sourcing. Every spending figure comes from the LD-1 and LD-2 filings for client Nvidia in the Lobbying Disclosure Act database, read through its public API on 11 November 2026: Nvidia’s own reports since its March 2025 registration, using amended reports where filed, and the outside firms’ reports for 2023 to 2026. Totals, growth rates and multiples are our arithmetic. The Information’s two-year account is quoted from its post on X; we did not read the paywalled article. Nvidia was not contacted for this piece.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
