TuSimple’s co-founder, Xiaodi Hou, resigned from the company’s board of directors last week amid an internal investigation which sought to verify claims that Hou approached TuSimple employees about leaving the company to join his new venture, per an SEC filing.
Sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch a “whistleblower” informed upper management about Hou’s solicitations of employees over the past few months to join a company he was starting. Hou had allegedly been pressuring certain employees to stop working so hard, either because they would soon join his new venture or because he wanted to see the autonomous trucking company fail without him, the sources say.
TuSimple began an internal investigation, during which it confirmed at least two employees — top talent in “high tech” teams — had been approached by Hou, but the co-founder resigned from the boa...
