Three years ago, Trump and the Wisconsin GOP signed a deal with Foxconn to build an LCD factory in Mount Pleasant. Today, @joshdzieza reveals that the "factory" is an empty shell, permitted for storage. Foxconn still has no working plan for Wisconsin. https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wisconsin-jobs-loophole-trump

Foxconn tried everything in Wisconsin from esports to running fish farms to building WeWork-style spaces called "Blaze." It hired hundreds of people with nothing to do so it could get tax subsidies — then laid them off after a couple months. https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wisconsin-jobs-loophole-trump

At one point, Foxconn promised to build self-driving cars in Wisconsin. It got as far as ordering golf carts from China, but it didn't have the tech to automate them, so employees just raced them around the parking lot. https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wisconsin-jobs-loophole-trump

Foxconn was so disorganized in Wisconsin that at one point it was running on IT equipment an employee had brought from home, and had its internet cut off for not paying the bill, which... c'mon. https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wisconsin-jobs-loophole-trump

And, of course, Foxconn hired people at a furious clip at the end of the year so it could qualify for tax subsidies. When the filing deadline passed, it laid them off. In the meantime, they sat around watching videos. https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wisconsin-jobs-loophole-trump

The story of Foxconn in Wisconsin is one of the strangest, funniest, saddest things we've ever covered. As @joshdzieza writes, it would have been better if they had just failed. But failing while insisting that everything's going great has been disastrous https://www.theverge.com/21507966/foxconn-empty-factories-wisconsin-jobs-loophole-trump