Autonomous Driving Startup TuSimple Agrees to U.S. Regulations

Autonomous driving startup TuSimple has reached an agreement with U.S. authorities to resolve security concerns around its self-driving truck operations and the company’s ties with China, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

The company said that the agreement includes giving the U.S. government some amount of oversight related to the technology behind TuSimple’s self-driving truck operations. The measures involve restricting some information, including source code and algorithms for its autonomous trucking operations, from the company’s China division, Jim Mullen, the company’s chief administrative and legal officer, said in an interview.

The startup will name a new security officer and security director, the latter of whom will establish a “government security committee” that will meet periodically and report to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is part of the Treasury Department.

Previously, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) worried that TuSimple’s business in China and the United States and its association with Sun Dream, one of its major shareholders, might affect U.S. national security. Sun Dream is an affiliate of Sina, a Chinese social media firm, and is controlled by Charles Chao, Sina’s chairman.

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Charles Chao and Sina’s CFO Bonnie Zhang, both currently serving as directors of TuSimple, will resign after their terms end later this year. In addition, Sun Dream agreed not to nominate other directors or increase its shareholding in TuSimple.