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

Summary

Self-driving truck startup TuSimple (now CreateAI) sent a trove of sensitive data – effectively the blueprint of an American-made autonomous vehicle system – to a Beijing-owned firm after committing to the U.S. government that it would cease such transfers under a national security agreement, according to The Wall Street Journal. The transfers to Chinese truck manufacturer Foton happened around February 2022, just a week after TuSimple signed the agreement in which U.S. regulators ordered the company to separate its business and technology from China-based employees and partners with firewalls and governance controls. The data sharing continued up until TuSimple’s deadline to comply with the agreement six months later, according to hundreds of pages of correspondence that the Journal viewed. A subsequent investigation with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) found the data sharing didn’t technically violate the agreement, though TuSimple was fined for other infractions and paid a $6 million settlement without admitting fault, per the Journal. TechCrunch was unable to reach TuSimple, now CreateAI, for comment. Still, the saga of TuSimple’s data transfers to China exposes the limits of U.S. safeguards meant to balance foreign investment with national security. And it’s not just data that TuSimple has been trying to get across the border. This latest revelation comes eight months after TechCrunch reported that some of TuSimple’s shareholders were trying to block the company from transferring its U.S. funds – roughly $450 million at the time – to the company’s Chinese subsidiary to fund a pivot to AI animation and content generation. That drama is still unfolding as one of TuSimple co-founders, Xiaodi Hou, fights in court for control over his voting shares so he can push for liquidation of the company. In December 2024, TuSimple officially rebranded to CreateAI. The company has been embroiled in controversy since going public via IPO in 2021. TuSimpl...