‘Foxconn Says Empty Buildings in Wisconsin Are Not Empty’

Nilay Patel, on Foxconn’s response to The Verge’s investigation into their Wisconsin scam:

Today, Foxconn responded to that piece by… announcing another innovation center in Wisconsin, this one in Madison, the state’s capital. The building, which currently houses a bank, actually sits directly across the street from the Capitol building, and it will continue to house the bank because Foxconn did not announce when it would be moving in.

Here are some other things Foxconn did not announce: how much it had paid for the building, how many floors of the building it would occupy, how many people would work there, or what those people would be doing.

It did announce that it would be rebranding the building “Foxconn Place Madison,” however.

It’s like Foxconn is a stage magician, and Wisconsin paid $4.5 billion to see an elephant disappear from the stage. But two years later, there still is no elephant, it seems ever more clear that they never had any intention of even showing an elephant, let alone making it disappear, and now that people are calling them on it, they’re like, “We are definitely going to make an elephant disappear from this stage, but hey — how about a card trick?”

★ Friday, 12 April 2019