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written by | zhang yu

editor | yang bocheng

title image | wenxinyige

tusimple, the long-silent "first autonomous driving stock", has once again been caught in a whirlpool of public opinion due to an anonymous letter from a shareholder. the anonymous letter pointed out that tusimple's senior management was suspected of self-operated transactions and covering up the embezzlement of public funds, and its autonomous driving business has become empty talk, and questioned tusimple's shift to aigc.

recently, in response to the doubts, tusimple's chairman chen mo, president and ceo lu cheng, and co-founder and china ceo hao jianan held a media communication meeting to make a public response. at the beginning of the media communication meeting, hao jianan said, "the accusations here are all untrue and lies." chen mo and lu cheng also made it clear that the company's business direction transformation is a normal business activity and does not involve any fraud or profit transfer.

in fact, this is not the first time tusimple has been embroiled in internal disputes.

in september 2015, chen mo, hou xiaodi, hao jianan and others co-founded tusimple, aiming to empower the global transportation industry with l4 autonomous driving technology. however, in march 2022, lu cheng and chen mo resigned, and hou xiaodi became the company's independent controller. in october of the same year, hou xiaodi was dismissed from all positions by the board of directors, and then chen mo and lu cheng returned. in march 2023, hou xiaodi suddenly resigned as a director, and since then hou xiaodi has completely parted ways with chen mo and lu cheng.

but tusimple's internal disputes seem to be not over yet. previously, hou xiaodi authorized chen mo to have super voting rights for two years, which will expire in november 2024, when a new board of directors and chairman will be elected. it is worth mentioning that hou xiaodi and chen mo each hold 12 million class b shares, which means that tusimple's future development direction is still very uncertain.

01.

a dramatic transformation

internal strife was a key factor in tusimple's dramatic shift in direction.

in november 2022, when chen mo and lu cheng returned to tusimple, there was no longer any cooperation related to autonomous driving. chen mo pointed out that during hou xiaodi's tenure, navistar and scania, heavy truck manufacturers that had been working closely with tusimple and had placed orders, asked to terminate the cooperation. "we tried to fix it, but it was basically not a good fix."

at the same time, tusimple's r&d and testing team in the united states has expanded to thousands of people, spending about $300 million a year. senior management believes that costs must be reduced, so tusimple decided to disband the r&d and testing team and terminate autonomous driving tests in the united states.

however, tusimple has not completely divested its autonomous driving business, but continues to promote the commercialization of autonomous driving technology through technical cooperation and authorization. lu cheng also said that autonomous driving, once tusimple's core advantage, will continue to be a business, but will shift from the original heavy asset investment to the current lightweight operation, and this cooperation direction has achieved certain business progress.

with its former core advantages gone, tusimple had to find a new direction for development. in march 2024, tusimple's top management decided to explore aigc-related directions. after several months of preliminary exploration, the top management unanimously agreed that there were huge commercial opportunities in this field.

aigc, or artificial intelligence generated content, refers to the use of artificial intelligence technology to automatically generate various types of content such as text, images, audio and video. this technology relies on advanced means such as natural language processing and machine learning to give machines the ability to understand and create, thereby producing creative works.

lu cheng stated at the media communication meeting that tusimple's choice of the aigc track, the establishment of a new business department, and the announcement of the company's official entry into the animation, film and game industries were choices made after the business was unanimously approved by the board of directors and were in compliance with relevant shareholder charters and approval procedures.

in august 2024, tusimple announced a partnership with shanghai three-body animation co., ltd. to jointly develop animated feature films and video games based on the internationally renowned science fiction novel series "the three-body problem" created by liu cixin. in order to promote cooperation, tusimple also established a special department "generative ai".

after tusimple announced its official entry into the aigc field, it raised many questions. some people pointed out that chen mo may benefit from tusimple's entry into the animation and game fields because he is associated with several private animation and game companies. in addition, tusimple's insufficient disclosure of new businesses has left "shareholders in the dark", causing shareholders to be confused about its prospects.

however, lu cheng revealed at the media communication meeting that tusimple's aigc business will be oriented to the global market, and it is expected to release aigc-related business progress in december 2024. chen mo is very optimistic about the aigc business, "if we are lucky, the company will be able to achieve positive cash flow in 2027, and if we are even luckier, it will be achieved in 2026."

02.

from brilliant glory to embarrassing delisting

on april 16, 2021, tusimple was listed on the nasdaq in the united states, becoming the world's "first autonomous driving stock". before the listing, tusimple received 10 rounds of financing, with a total financing amount of more than us$650 million. among the investors, there are many well-known companies such as volkswagen group traton, nvidia, us logistics company ups, and us truck company navistar.

tusimple's stock offering price was $40 per share, and its total market value reached $8.49 billion on the day of its listing. by june 2021, tusimple's stock price hit a new high of about $80 per share, and its total market value once reached $18.3 billion.

however, the highlight moment did not last long. when lu cheng and chen mo left in march 2022, tusimple's stock price was $16.97 per share, a 58% drop from the issue price. when hou xiaodi was dismissed in october of the same year, tusimple's stock price fell again to $3.43 per share, a drop of 80% in just half a year.

the "continuous decline" in the stock market continued until january 17, 2024, when tusimple announced its voluntary delisting from the nasdaq stock market and would cancel its common stock registration with the u.s. securities and exchange commission around january 27. after delisting, tusimple, as a private company, will no longer bear the obligation to make announcements.

tusimple said in the announcement that since the company's ipo in 2021, the capital market has undergone a major shift, partly due to rising interest rates and quantitative tightening, which has changed investors' sentiment towards pre-commercial technology growth companies. the company's valuation and liquidity have declined, and the company's stock price volatility has increased significantly. therefore, the benefits of maintaining a listed company status can no longer justify the cost. the company believes that it can better transform as a private company than as a public company.

it took tusimple less than three years for its successful listing to go from a disastrous delisting, with its total market value evaporating by more than 99%.

the other side of the "continuous decline" in stock prices is that tusimple has not found a viable profit model. according to the last financial report before delisting, its total revenue in the third quarter of 2023 was us$26.53 million, while its net loss was as high as us$113 million.

looking at the extended timeline, from 2019 to 2022, tusimple's total revenue was us$710,000, us$1.843 million, us$6.261 million and us$9.369 million, respectively, while its net losses were us$84.883 million, us$178 million, us$733 million and us$472 million, respectively.

huge r&d investment is the main factor that makes it difficult for tusimple to achieve profitability. in 2019 and 2020, tusimple's r&d investment was us$63.619 million and us$132 million respectively. by the first three quarters of 2023, its r&d investment had reached us$164 million, which is 53.6 times its total revenue.

in fact, huge r&d investment has always been an unavoidable problem for tusimple. from a business model perspective, the industry chain of autonomous driving is very long, involving many software and hardware suppliers. if the key links cannot be profitable, it will be impossible to form a closed loop and continuous iteration. cicc once pointed out in a research report that the mainstream technical solution for l4 and l5 autonomous driving is to use 4 laser radars, 8-11 cameras at the perception layer, 12 ultrasonic radars, 5-8 millimeter-wave radars, and gnss/imu positioning systems. this also means that if the hardware cost does not drop significantly, the commercialization of tusimple will be a long way off.

it can be seen that after delisting from nasdaq, tusimple's transformation into the aigc track and its choice to become an artificial intelligence technology company was also a helpless move.

03.

aigc is unlikely to be a life-saving straw

tusimple's logic for entering the aigc track is very simple. lu cheng summarized it into four aspects: first, the aigc industry has developed rapidly in recent years, and content and games are very large markets, with a global scale of approximately us$600 billion; second, by studying the production process of games and animations, aigc can create great value in this regard; third, since the beginning of 2022, tusimple has been conducting research and development and practice of large model technology and generative ai applications in the field of autonomous driving, and has a solid foundation; fourth, senior management has some experience in the aigc field. for example, chen mo had many years of experience in the gaming industry before founding tusimple.

the aigc track is indeed entering a period of rapid development. according to the "china aigc application panorama report", it is estimated that the scale of china's aigc application market will reach 20 billion yuan in 2024 and will reach a trillion yuan scale by 2030, becoming an important growth point in the global ai field.

but making aigc the life-saving straw for tusimple is not an easy task.

an aigc industry insider told donews that aigc belongs to the cutting-edge technology field and is characterized by capital-intensive, technology-intensive and talent-intensive characteristics. currently, it is mainly a game for a few giant technology companies. as a latecomer, tusimple lacks accumulation. if it wants to stand out in this field, the difficulties and risks are actually no less than those of the autonomous driving business.

in addition, although both autonomous driving technology and aigc belong to the field of artificial intelligence, there are significant differences between the two in terms of technical principles, application scenarios and business models. in the process of transforming the accumulation of autonomous driving technology into advantages in the field of aigc, tusimple will inevitably face difficulties such as difficulty in technology integration, high cost and long cycle. at the same time, aigc has broad application prospects in the fields of film and television, game development, etc., but the technical maturity is still limited and the business model is not yet fully mature. in the process of exploring the field of aigc, tusimple needs to continue trial and error and adjustment, and it is difficult to meet commercialization needs in the short term.

it is reported that from october 2 to 5, 2024, tusimple will attend the 2024 cicf×agf guangzhou animation and game festival with blockbuster new works such as "heroes of heroes 2", "kings" and "the three-body problem". this is also the first time it has participated in an industry conference since its transformation, but whether tusimple can gain a foothold in the aigc field is still unknown. for tusimple, which once had a wide market influence, this dramatic transformation from an autonomous driving company to an artificial intelligence technology company is undoubtedly a cause for regret and emotion.