President Trump promised that a Foxconn fabrication plant would make 13,000 jobs in the state of Wisconsin , even call it the “ eighth wonderment of the humanity . ” But the electronics maker never built the manufactory it had originally pitched to Wisconsin legislators , nor did it hire anywhere close to 13,000 multitude . Now , Foxconn will not receive billions of dollars in tax subsidies after all .
According toThe brink , contract negotiations between the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer , which makes LCD screens for all sorts of devices , and Wisconsin ’s country legislature have fallen through because Foxconn has break to present what it promised in its original declaration : a Milwaukee - based U.S. main office with a Gen 10.5 LCD factory .
The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation ( WEDC)rejected Foxconn ’s software for revenue enhancement subsidy because it want to employ at least 520 people by the oddment of 2019 . Foxconn said it had employ 550 people , but the WEDC said only 281 of those employee modify under the terms of the contract . According to The Verge , some employees out of that 281 could have been deemed ineligible because they made less than $ 30,000 a class or were not base in Wisconsin .
President Donald Trump speaks to guests during a groundbreaking ceremony for the $10 billion Foxconn factory complex on 28 March 2025 in Mt. Pleasant, Wis.Photo: Scott Olson (Getty Images)
This Foxconn saga endure back to 2016 , when the then - Governor Scott Walker and the majority - Republican state legislature agreed to give the company $ 3 billion in tax breaks and incentives if its headquarters were based in Milwaukee . In 2018 , Foxconn purchased a heavy part buildingin the urban center with enough elbow room for around 500 workers — by all accounts seemed like the caller was actually get going through with it . But in 2019 , Foxconn announcedthat it was n’t proceed to build a factory in Milwaukee after all . The caller told Gizmodo that it had change its plans due to changes within the global mart .
From there , the situation became more convoluted . The day after Foxconn make up one’s mind not to build its manufacturing plant in Wisconsin , President Trump somehow managed to convert the companyto do it anyway .
“ After generative give-and-take between the White House and the troupe , and after a personal conversation between President Donald J. Trump and Chairman Terry Gou , Foxconn is move forwards with our planned building of a Gen 6 fab facility , ” Foxconn sound out in a command to theMilwaukee Business JournalandCNBC . The company ’s Gen 6 readiness would only made sound screen , rather of the Gen 10.5 deftness that was originally planned to manufacture TV screens .
But several obvious signs appeared that the spate was a regretful move . By April 2019 , not only had the company hired just 178 the great unwashed out of the 13,000 it was speculate to , but ithadn’t even opened its manufactory . Gov. Tony Evers had replaced Scott Walker by that gunpoint and was set to renegociate the subsidy deal with Foxconn . By July of 2019 , Wisconsin State Assemblyman Gordon Hintz said the company was gestate to hire1,500 instead of 13,000 people — a more realistic numeral .
And that brings us to where we are today .
Other than not hiring the contractually agree upon number of employees , the contract between Foxconn and the state of Wisconsin also stipulate that the company build up a Gen 10.5 LCD manufactory , not a Gen 6 . That factory was supposed to be 20 million square feet ; its Gen 6 building is just 1 million straight feet .
Foxconn was also suppose to invest $ 3.3 billion by the close of 2019 into its manufacturing plant , per the terms of its contract , but it only invested between $ 280 - 300 million . If Foxconn does n’t asseverate at least 5,850 employees by the last of 2023 , the WEDC could take back any underling payments the state has already paid out .
Foxconn say the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel it was “ surprised ” by the state ’s decision and that it “ threatens good religious belief negotiations ” to retool the contract bridge .
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