What’s going on with Foxconn in Wisconsin?

“The secrecy and vagueness are frustrating to critics,” Josh Dzieza writes for The Verge. “How do you prove that Foxconn won’t build an enormous LCD factory during an industry glut or create a research campus larger than MIT in rural Wisconsin other than by pointing out that experts — and even, occasionally, Foxconn executives — say it makes no sense?”
“For Foxconn watchers, the Milwaukee headquarters feels like a distillation of the whole ordeal,” Dzieza writes. “Foxconn did buy a building — it put signs up, and there are some people there with Foxconn lanyards — but it’s a significantly diminished version of what was promised and strangely secret for a project that began with such public fanfare… A local observer gave me a tip from his own attempts to discern what exactly is going on inside the headquarters: if you go to the top floor of a parking garage across the street at dusk, you can see into the Foxconn floors. I did so and saw that it looks like a normal office, and there were at least six people inside.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s a long article, but the gist is that nobody seems to know what the heck Foxconn is doing in Wisconsin, if anything.
As we wrote of the whole thing back in February: “Sounds waffly.”
SEE ALSO:
Foxconn after talks with White House: Wisconsin site will be an ‘advanced manufacturing facility as well as a hub of high technology innovation’ – February 1, 2019
Foxconn reconsidering plans to make LCD panels at Wisconsin plant – January 30, 2019
Foxconn secured permission to withdraw more than 7 million gallons a day from Lake Michigan – August 14, 2018
President Trump gives remarks at groundbreaking of Apple supplier Foxconn’s $10 billion Wisconsin factory – June 28, 2018
President Trump announces Apple supplier Foxconn’s $10 billion investment in Wisconsin and up to 13,000 jobs – July 27, 2017
President Trump to announce Apple-supplier Foxconn manufacturing plant in Wisconsin today at 5pm EDT – July 26, 2017
Apple supplier Foxconn nearing decision to build plant in Wisconsin to produce display panels – July 25, 2017
Made in America iPhones, after all? Apple supplier Foxconn considering iPhone plant in Wisconsin – June 15, 2017
China Premier Li visits Apple supplier Foxconn after CEO’s meeting with President Trump – May 10, 2017
Foxconn-Sharp considering LCD plant in USA, plans in response to President-elect Trump’s ‘Make in America’ call – January 13, 2017