Report: TuSimple sent sensitive self-driving data to China after US national security agreement

Self-driving truck startup TuSimple (now CreateAI) despatched a trove of delicate information — successfully the blueprint of an American-made autonomous automobile system — to a Beijing-owned agency after committing to the U.S. authorities that it will stop such transfers below a nationwide safety settlement, in line with The Wall Street Journal. 

The transfers to Chinese language truck producer Foton occurred round February 2022, only a week after TuSimple signed the settlement during which U.S. regulators ordered the corporate to separate its enterprise and know-how from China-based staff and companions with firewalls and governance controls. The information sharing continued up till TuSimple’s deadline to adjust to the settlement six months later, in line with lots of of pages of correspondence that the Journal seen.

A subsequent investigation with the Committee on Overseas Funding within the U.S. (CFIUS) discovered the information sharing didn’t technically violate the settlement, although TuSimple was fined for different infractions and paid a $6 million settlement with out admitting fault, per the Journal. 

TechCrunch was unable to achieve TuSimple, now CreateAI, for remark.

Nonetheless, the saga of TuSimple’s information transfers to China exposes the bounds of U.S. safeguards meant to stability overseas funding with nationwide safety. And it’s not simply information that TuSimple has been attempting to get throughout the border. 

This newest revelation comes eight months after TechCrunch reported that a few of TuSimple’s shareholders had been attempting to dam the corporate from transferring its U.S. funds — roughly $450 million on the time — to the corporate’s Chinese language subsidiary to fund a pivot to AI animation and content material technology. That drama continues to be unfolding as one in all TuSimple’s co-founders, Xiaodi Hou, fights in courtroom for management over his voting shares so he can push for liquidation of the corporate. In December 2024, TuSimple officially rebranded to CreateAI. 

The corporate has been embroiled in controversy since going public through IPO in 2021. TuSimple began as a China-backed startup based in 2015 by Hou and Lu Chen, an entrepreneur with ties to Sina Corp. It shortly turned an autonomous automobile business favourite, managing to boost round $2 billion from a mix of Chinese language and U.S.-based heavy hitters, and was one of many first within the U.S. to efficiently full a completely driverless run on public highways. 

TuSimple’s plans took a flip for the more severe amid inner struggles and federal investigations into the corporate’s ties with China, resulting in its determination to exit U.S. operations and voluntarily delisting from the inventory market in January 2024. The aim was to restart self-driving operations in China, however each the CFIUS settlement and different courtroom orders that barred the corporate from transferring property — monetary or in any other case — to China made it subsequent to unattainable to restart operations there, the corporate has advised TechCrunch. 

The Journal’s reporting sheds mild on a beforehand reported controversy regarding Hydron, a Chinese language hydrogen trucking startup based by Chen, which shared an workplace with TuSimple China. The overlap between Hydron and TuSimple was the topic of the 2022 CFIUS probe, throughout which TuSimple revealed that its staff spent paid hours working for Hydron in 2021 and shared confidential info with the corporate. 

Based on paperwork the Journal seen, TuSimple negotiated a deal in 2021 between Hydron and Foton to develop autonomous vehicles. Foton, a subsidiary of state-owned BAIC Group, has an settlement with a Chinese language army college to work on AV tech. 

By a mixture of emails, Slack messages, and video calls, TuSimple despatched companions technical directions for server dimensions, brake designs, sensors, steering, energy provide, and chips, per the Journal. Workers additionally routinely downloaded autonomy supply code developed by their American counterparts.

As geopolitical tensions and competitors with China rise, TuSimple’s ties are serving as a cautionary story for Washington that has helped drive a shift in U.S. policy, prompting stricter guidelines on Chinese language-linked tech offers and fueling a broader push to dam high-risk transactions outright.