The Foxconn Con
The company's Wisconsin outpost was supposed to create 13,000 jobs; as of this year it employed no more than 281 people.
Two years after Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn broke ground in Wisconsin, the massive LCD factory and accompanying tech campus the company promised to build in exchange for $3 billion in state subsidies does not exist and "probably never will," The Verge reported in October. The company's Wisconsin outpost was supposed to create 13,000 jobs; as of this year it employed no more than 281 people.
Brokered by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, the subsidy deal with Foxconn is now in serious jeopardy. Current Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, is refusing to pay, due to the company's unilateral decision to abandon or change many of its planned projects, including the pictured "globe." Originally pitched as "a network operation center for a complex of data centers," according to The Verge, the skeletal structure will now be merely an office and event space—if it's ever completed.