Foxconn founder Terry Gou pledged to start up a long-delayed electronics plant in Wisconsin this year. Gou said the Foxconn Wisconsin electronics plant will drive his company’s vision of manufacturing components for 5G wireless and artificial intelligence applications.
In mid-2017, Foxconn Technology Group pledged to invest $10 billion to build a display panel plant in Wisconsin that could employ up to 13,000 workers and would draw up to $3 billion in subsidies from state taxpayers. At 20 million square feet, the promised factory would have been three times the size of the Pentagon, making it one of the largest manufacturing campuses in the nation. Since then there have been reports that the company was scaling back its plans amid many delays.
Wisconsin former Governor Scott Walker, who helped strike the state’s partnership along with Gou and President Trump, lost his reelection bid in 2018 in part because of the delays and confusion surrounding the Foxconn project.
“I hope many Hon Hai colleagues will go work in the U.S. to help America boost manufacturing and build a supply chain,” Gou told employees at his company’s new year’s party in Taipei…
Foxconn’s Wisconsin complex, which President Donald Trump has hailed as a symbol of America’s manufacturing revival, has spurred controversy since its 2017 inception… Foxconn, whose main listed vehicle is Apple Inc. iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., has since kept its precise plans under wraps. Originally conceived as a factory to make liquid crystal displays for TVs, the company reduced the size and scope of the manufacturing center it committed to building and missed its maximum first-year hiring target by 82%.
MacDailyNews Take: After what has seemed like some considerable waffling, hopefully Foxconn will finally prove that they are full committed to their promised investment in Wisconsin.