- Premium Content It takes our newsroom weeks - if not months - to investigate and produce stories for our premium content. You can’t find them anywhere else.
Melissa Goh · · 8 min readCreateAI eyes redemption with high-stakes pivot
The last few years have been rough for CreateAI CEO Cheng Lu.
On his LinkedIn page, all mentions of TuSimple, the autonomous trucking company he co-founded in 2015, have been scrubbed. Once listed on the Nasdaq and valued at over US$8 billion, TuSimple delisted and exited the US in 2024 after its valuation and share price plunged.
The company had raised over US$600 million in funding prior to its IPO and had Chinese tech giant Sina among its early backers.
In 2022, Lu was ousted as CEO, only to be reappointed months later. Disputes among the firm’s co-founders continue.
This time around, the Chinese-American entrepreneur is hoping to reinvent his fortunes.
Image credit: Tech in Asia
At an investor presentation last December, Lu unveiled the firm’s rebrand from TuSimple to CreateAI – an effort that was almost a year in the making – alongside bold plans to enter the video gaming and AI-generated content market.
TuSimple’s investors have opposed the drastic pivot. The move also sparked a bigger question: What does autonomous trucking have to do with AI and gaming?
Lu disagrees with the notion that the two business models are unrelated: “Really, you’re building a very complex AI system, and the nuts and bolts, the know-how – it’s all the same,” he says in a recent interview with Tech in Asia.
“The last two years have been difficult – there’s no question,” Lu adds.
“We lost all our partners”
CreateAI’s launch comes at a time when OpenAI, Google, and Tencent have all released AI models that can generate videos based on images or text prompts. Last December, Elon Musk announced a similarly audacious move to “make games great again” with his AI company, xAI.
Lu, who says CreateAI did not raise additional money to launch the new business, will have his work cut out for him. Ditching the company’s self-driving roots is one thing; convincing investors it can pull off a pivot—and justify the cash burn—is another.
Autonomous trucking firm TuSimple’s pivot to CreateAI last year faced strong opposition from its investors./ Photo credit: TuSimple
Banking on gaming IPs
Can AI make “games great again?”
Tying up loose threads
Stay ahead in Asia’s tech landscape
This is premium content. Subscribe to read the full story.
Formerly TuSimple, the firm delisted from Nasdaq amid investigations and disputes. Now, its CEO opens up about starting over.
We know this is not ideal. ⌛ Sign up in 20 seconds. Cancel anytime.
Our subscriber community includes professionals from these companies:
Stay updated on the go with our mobile app.
Get latest insights with smoother, more personalized experience through TIA mobile app.
