Self-driving trucking firm TuSimple removes its own stock from NASDAQ exchange

Autonomous trucking technology vendor TuSimple says it will voluntarily delist its common stock from the NASDAQ exchange, eight months after stock market administrators started that process when the San Diego-based company failed to file its financial paperwork.

In a statement, the company said it had “determined that the benefits of remaining a publicly traded company no longer justify the costs. As previously disclosed, the company is undergoing a transformation that the company believes it can better navigate as a private company than as a publicly traded one.”

NASDAQ had originally taken the step to delist TuSimple in May, 2023, since the company had not timely filed its recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q or Annual Report on Form 10-K. At the time, the company had said it intended to dispute the action, even while trading of its stock was suspended pending that outcome. A month later, TuSimple said it was exploring options to sell off its U.S. operations entirely and expand its self-driving truck business in China.

During the fourth quarter of 2022 and first half of 2023, TuSimple conducted multiple restructuring plans to improve its cost structure, which included a reduction of the company's global workforce. But in its most recent earnings report, TuSimple reported a “loss from operations” of $248.6 million and for the nine months ended September 30, 2023.

In its notice of leaving the NASDAQ exchange, TuSimple executives blamed financial markets for its fate. “Since TuSimple's initial public offering in 2021, there has been a significant shift in capital markets, due in part to rising interest rates and quantitative tightening, that has changed investor sentiment for pre-commercialization technology growth companies. The company's valuation and liquidity have declined, while the company's stock price volatility has increased significantly,” they said in a release.