Foxconn in Wisconsin: The $10 Billion Factory That Never Was
13,000 Promised Jobs, More Than $4 Billion in Pledged Taxpayer Support, and the Field in Mount Pleasant Where Microsoft Now Builds Instead
In July 2017, Foxconn stood beside President Trump at the White House and promised a $10 billion LCD factory in Racine County, Wisconsin, creating 13,000 jobs in return for what became more than $4 billion in pledged state and local taxpayer support. The factory was never built. What followed was a procession of scaled-back plans — a smaller fab, research centres, an 'AI 8K+5G ecosystem' — before a 2021 renegotiation cut the state's exposure to $80 million against $672 million of investment and 1,454 jobs. By the end of 2024, WEDC had verified $717 million invested and 1,242 jobs. Much of the land cleared for Foxconn is now being developed by Microsoft as a $7.3 billion data-centre campus. This investigation reconstructs America's most notorious trophy deal.
Source: investigation key facts.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Original budget | $10 billion promised Foxconn investment and 13,000 jobs, against $2.85 billion state credits plus local incentives — more than $4 billion total taxpayer support |
| Final cost | WEDC-verified investment of ~$717 million and 1,242 jobs by end-2024 (earning $62.9 million in credits under the renegotiated $80 million contract); a second 2025 amendment allows up to $96 million through 2029 |
Contents
What Happened
The announcement was designed as spectacle: on 26 July 2017, at a White House ceremony, Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn committed to a $10 billion liquid-crystal-display plant in Wisconsin — the first large LCD fab outside Asia — with 13,000 jobs at an average wage near $54,000. Wisconsin's legislature passed a $2.85 billion state tax-credit package within weeks; once local incentives, road works and infrastructure were added, the Governor's office later acknowledged total taxpayer-funded support exceeded $4 billion. At the June 2018 groundbreaking, President Trump called the project 'the eighth wonder of the world'. The economics never closed. LCD panel production depended on supply chains, glass substrates and labour economics that did not exist in Wisconsin, and Foxconn began retreating almost immediately: the Generation 10.5 fab became a Generation 6 fab, then 'advanced manufacturing', then research and development, with public statements about coffee kiosks, aquaponics and ventilators replacing the factory narrative. Investigative reporting by The Verge documented largely empty buildings and employees hired with little real work to do — the reporting won a Sidney Award for exposing what it called 'the great Foxconn con'. The state, for its part, found Foxconn fell short of the job thresholds in its own contract and declined to award credits for 2019. The reckoning came in April 2021, when Governor Tony Evers' administration renegotiated the contract down to reality: up to $80 million in performance-based credits if Foxconn invested $672 million and created 1,454 jobs by the end of 2025 — roughly a 97 per cent cut in the state's maximum exposure, which Evers' office said would save taxpayers $2.77 billion compared with the original deal. WEDC's verification reports tell the rest: as of 31 December 2024, Foxconn had invested nearly $717 million in Mount Pleasant and created 1,242 verified jobs, qualifying for $62.9 million in credits. The site today primarily manufactures data servers, and in November 2025 a second amendment added $569 million of planned investment and up to $16 million more in credits through 2029 — a modest, functioning manufacturing operation, not a transformation. The epilogue belongs to someone else. From 2023, Microsoft began acquiring land originally assembled for Foxconn, and in May 2024 President Biden announced a $3.3 billion Microsoft AI data-centre campus on the site, pointedly contrasting it with the failed factory. In September 2025 Microsoft added a further $4 billion second facility, taking its committed Racine County investment to about $7.3 billion. The roads, water and power infrastructure built for Foxconn — at substantial cost to the village and county, some of it financed by debt and cleared through contested eminent-domain purchases — turned out to be the deal's most durable product: they made the land attractive to the tenant that arrived after the eighth wonder evaporated.
Why It Matters
Foxconn-Wisconsin is the canonical case against trophy-deal economic development. A company with a documented pattern of announcing enormous projects and quietly doing whatever made commercial sense was handed the largest incentive package in US history for a foreign company — negotiated in weeks, announced at the White House, and structured so that headlines preceded diligence. The state's own Legislative Fiscal Bureau and Legislative Audit Bureau raised early questions about job verification and payback periods measured in decades; the political system signed anyway. The case matters beyond Wisconsin because the same playbook — emergency-speed incentive packages for marquee manufacturers — continues to govern semiconductor and data-centre attraction across the US. Its one redeeming feature is instructive: the 2021 renegotiation shows that performance-based credits with clawbacks can contain the damage, and the Microsoft investment shows that honest infrastructure spending can outlive the dishonest promise it was built for. Failure is not the opposite of value here; it is the tuition fee for it.
-
proposal
2017-07-26
Foxconn and President Trump announce a $10 billion Wisconsin LCD plant with up to 13,000 jobs at a White House ceremony.
-
approval
2017-09
Wisconsin passes a $2.85 billion state tax-credit package; with local incentives and infrastructure, total taxpayer support exceeds $4 billion. WEDC contract signed in November.
-
construction
2018-06-28
Groundbreaking in Mount Pleasant attended by Trump, who calls the project 'the eighth wonder of the world'; home demolitions and land clearance are already under way.
-
warning
2019-01
Foxconn signals it is reconsidering LCD manufacturing in Wisconsin, citing US cost economics; plans begin shifting to smaller fabs and research uses.
-
inquiry
2019-10
The Verge publishes 'Inside Foxconn's empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin', documenting the gap between claims and reality.
-
failure
2020-10
WEDC finds Foxconn short of the contract's job thresholds and declines to award tax credits for 2019 activity.
-
settlement
2021-04-20
Governor Evers announces a renegotiated contract: up to $80 million in credits for $672 million investment and 1,454 jobs by end-2025 — saving taxpayers $2.77 billion against the original deal.
-
milestone
2021-12
Foxconn receives its first state credits — $28.8 million for verified 2020 investment and jobs — under the amended agreement.
-
deal
2023
Microsoft begins acquiring Mount Pleasant land originally assembled for Foxconn, eventually controlling more than 1,900 acres.
-
investment
2024-05-08
President Biden announces Microsoft's $3.3 billion AI data-centre campus on the Foxconn site, contrasting it with the failed factory promise.
-
milestone
2024-12
WEDC verifies $717 million invested and 1,242 jobs at Foxconn's Mount Pleasant operations as of 31 December 2024, qualifying for $62.9 million in credits.
-
investment
2025-09-18
Microsoft announces a further $4 billion second data centre, taking its committed Racine County investment to about $7.3 billion.
-
approval
2025-11-25
WEDC approves a second Foxconn amendment: $569 million additional investment, 1,374 further jobs, and up to $96 million total credits through 2029.
Root cause through the Decision Quality Model™ lens
Is the decision being made in the right context with clear objectives?
Have multiple viable options been generated and considered?
Is the decision based on relevant, reliable data — not assumptions?
Mount Pleasant and Racine County borrowed hundreds of millions for land assembly and infrastructure, cleared homes under eminent-domain pressure, and were left carrying risk the state could walk away from. When a state negotiates a trophy deal, its smallest municipalities absorb the downside.
Is the logic connecting information to conclusions valid?
Are the stakeholders committed to implementing the decision?
Decision Quality Model™
How Good Decisions Produce Good Outcomes — explore the framework →
Leadership Blind Spot Matrix™
Identifying What Leaders Cannot See — explore the framework →
Project Failure Pyramid™
The 4-Level Diagnostic for Cascading Failures — explore the framework →
Continue Investigating
The Weekly Brief — one investigation, one executive lesson and one project warning sign each week.
Subscribe freeLessons for Leaders
Announcements Are Not Investments
Foxconn's $10 billion was a press-conference figure that the company never contractually guaranteed at that scale. Track committed capital, verified payroll and permitted construction — not podium numbers. Wisconsin's own WEDC verification eventually supplied the honest metrics, eight years late.
Speed Is the Enemy of Diligence
The incentive package moved from memorandum to signed legislation in roughly two months. Deals compressed to fit political calendars systematically transfer risk to taxpayers, because the deadline — not the analysis — is what gets managed.
Check the Counterparty's Global Pattern
Foxconn had a public record of announcing mega-projects elsewhere that shrank or vanished. A one-week review of its history in Brazil, Indonesia and India would have repriced the Wisconsin promise. Counterparty track record is the cheapest due diligence there is.
Pay for Performance, and Mean It
The one structural success of the saga: credits were (eventually) paid only against verified jobs and investment — $62.9 million against $717 million and 1,242 jobs by end-2024 — and the 2021 amendment added 100 per cent clawback on default. Incentives that pay on delivery fail small instead of failing catastrophically.
Local Governments Cannot Hedge State-Level Bets
Mount Pleasant and Racine County borrowed hundreds of millions for land assembly and infrastructure, cleared homes under eminent-domain pressure, and were left carrying risk the state could walk away from. When a state negotiates a trophy deal, its smallest municipalities absorb the downside.
Stranded Infrastructure Can Be the Real Legacy
The roads, water and power built for Foxconn became the foundation for Microsoft's $7.3 billion data-centre campus. Public money spent on genuine, reusable capacity can outlive a failed anchor tenant — money spent on the promise itself cannot.
Executive Recommendations
Legislate Minimum Due-Diligence Periods — State incentive packages above a threshold should require a statutory review window with published fiscal analysis — including worst-case exposure — before any vote, ending announcement-first dealmaking.
Default to Performance-Only Incentives — Structure all awards as post-verification credits with full clawback, as the 2021 WEDC amendment eventually did, and publish annual verification data by default, as WEDC now does.
Score the Counterparty, Not Just the Project — Fiscal bureaux should be required to publish a counterparty history annex covering the company's prior announced-versus-delivered record in other jurisdictions.
Protect Local Balance Sheets — State-negotiated deals should cap or underwrite the debt local governments can be asked to carry, and eminent-domain powers should not be exercisable until the anchor project reaches defined construction milestones.
Build Reusable Infrastructure First — Sequence public spending into transport, water and power assets with independent value — the only component of the Foxconn package that later attracted Microsoft at no additional subsidy.
PMOS Intelligence
Preview — illustrative assessment; PMOS is in development“The deal was never really an LCD project; it was a political instrument for both parties. Foxconn needed President Trump's goodwill during a trade war with China, and a Wisconsin factory promise was a cheap way to buy it — the company repeatedly demonstrated, in Brazil, Indonesia, India and Pennsylvania, that its announced intentions and its actual investments are different documents. Walker needed a re-election headline and Trump needed a manufacturing trophy. When a deal's logic is political, due diligence becomes disloyalty, and Wisconsin's compressed legislative timetable ensured no one was paid to ask whether a Generation 10.5 LCD fab could survive in a state with no display supply chain. The most telling artefact is the 2021 amendment: converting the deal to standard WEDC terms quietly admitted the original was never a normal economic-development contract. The lesson for any state is brutal and simple — if the announcement ceremony happens before the business case, you are not the customer; you are the prop.”Ramesh's Insider Take — opinion
Documentary Evidence
Office of Governor Tony Evers, press release, 20 April 2021
Office of Governor Tony Evers · 2021-04-20
The original 2017 contract authorised $2.85 billion in state performance-based credits for a Generation 10.5 plant; with local incentives and public infrastructure, total taxpayer-funded support exceeded $4 billion.
Office of Governor Tony Evers / WEDC, April 2021
Office of Governor Tony Evers / WEDC · 2021-04
The 2021 amendment cut the state's exposure by $2.77 billion, offering up to $80 million if Foxconn hired 1,454 workers and invested $672 million by end-2025.
WEDC press release, 25 November 2025
WEDC · 2025-11-25
As of 31 December 2024, WEDC verified Foxconn had invested nearly $717 million and created 1,242 jobs in Mount Pleasant, qualifying for $62.9 million in credits.
The Verge (Josh Dzieza); Sidney Hillman Foundation, December 2020
The Verge (Josh Dzieza); Sidney Hillman Foundation · 2020-12
The Verge's investigation documented empty buildings and hollow promises at the Wisconsin site; the reporting won a Sidney Award.
Associated Press, 8 May 2024; WEDC, 2024
Associated Press · 2024-05-08
Microsoft announced a $3.3 billion data centre on the former Foxconn land in May 2024, later expanded by $4 billion in September 2025 to roughly $7.3 billion total.
Everything from this investigation
One investigation. Many outputs. Everything derived from this case, connected in one place.
Read & download
- Executive summaryRead the executive summary
- PDF briefDownload the PDF brief
- TimelineExplore the timeline
- EvidenceReview the documentary evidence
- SourcesSee the source list
- Framework analysisRead the framework analysis
Watch & listen
- DocumentaryIn production
- Episode pagePlanned
- Related documentariesBoeing 737 MAX
- ShortsNot published
- Podcast episodePlanned
Share & follow
- LinkedIn articlePlanned
- Medium articlePlanned
- Substack articlePlanned
- Downloadable templatesPlanned
- NewsletterGet this investigation by email
Connected research
- CompaniesFoxconn Technology Group
- CountriesUnited States
- IndustriesSemiconductors & Electronics Manufacturing
- Related investigationsBoeing 737 MAX · Denver Airport Baggage System · China's Ghost Cities
- Gov. Evers Announces Renegotiated Foxconn Contract to Save Taxpayers $2.77 Billion Office of the Governor, State of Wisconsin · 2021-04-20
- WEDC, Foxconn announce additional $569 million investment in Racine County Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation · 2025-11-25
- Gov. Evers, President Biden, Microsoft Officials to Celebrate Historic Investments in Mount Pleasant Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation · 2024
- Biden lauds new Microsoft center on the same site where Trump's Foxconn project failed Associated Press · 2024-05-08
- Inside Foxconn's empty buildings, empty factories, and empty promises in Wisconsin The Verge · 2019
- Foxconn's showcase Wisconsin LCD factory becomes aspirational 'manufacturing ecosystem' The Register · 2021-04-21
- Josh Dzieza wins November Sidney for Exposing The Great Foxconn Con Sidney Hillman Foundation · 2020-12
Frequently Asked Questions
In July 2017 Foxconn promised a $10 billion Generation 10.5 LCD manufacturing plant in Mount Pleasant, Racine County, creating up to 13,000 jobs. Wisconsin authorised $2.85 billion in state tax credits, with local incentives and public infrastructure taking total taxpayer support above $4 billion.
No. The Generation 10.5 fab was never built. Foxconn successively downsized its plans — smaller fab, research facilities, contract manufacturing — and the site now hosts a much smaller operation primarily making data servers, employing roughly one-tenth of the promised workforce.
WEDC verified that as of 31 December 2024 Foxconn had invested nearly $717 million and created 1,242 jobs, qualifying for $62.9 million in tax credits. A November 2025 amendment added $569 million of planned investment and up to $96 million in total potential credits through 2029.
Because the 2021 renegotiation made credits strictly performance-based, the state paid out only tens of millions — $62.9 million by end-2024 — rather than billions. The heavier losses sit locally: Mount Pleasant and Racine County borrowed hundreds of millions for land and infrastructure, and around 100 homes were acquired or demolished.
Microsoft acquired much of the land from 2023 and announced a $3.3 billion AI data-centre campus in May 2024, followed by a further $4 billion facility in September 2025 — about $7.3 billion in committed investment, attracted in part by infrastructure built for Foxconn.
The core failure was that the deal's logic was political rather than commercial: Foxconn gained White House goodwill during a trade war, and politicians gained a headline. There was no viable US LCD business case, and the incentive package was legislated in weeks with minimal diligence on Foxconn's record of scaled-back promises elsewhere.
