According to Bloomberg News, the mystery buyer at the former General Motors plant owned by Foxcon in Roadtown, Ohio is clearly SoftBank. SoftBank wants to use the factory to build AI servers as part of its Stargate Data Center project.
The report sold the electric vehicle manufacturing equipment inside it to a buyer called “Crescent Dune LLC,” an entity created in Delaware in late July, just days after Foxconn announced it had sold the plant. Neither company responded to requests for comment immediately.
It is unclear what this means for Monarch Tractor, a California-based startup that develops electrical and autonomous agricultural equipment. Monarch was the sole customer of Foxconn’s contract manufacturing operations at Ohio Factory. Monarch CEO Praveen Penmetsa has not responded to email comments requests.
Softbank, Openai and Oracle announced the Stargate project a day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. The initiative now includes large data centers being built in Texas, but the companies involved say they want to build infrastructure in other states and countries. In May, Bloomberg reported that SoftBank was struggling to raise funds for the project, already hampered by Trump’s countless trade wars.
Foxconn purchased the factory in late 2021 from electric vehicle startup Lordstown Motors. At the time, FOXCONN Chairman Young Liu said his company wanted to develop a site for “North America’s most important electric vehicle manufacturing and R&D hub.”
The sale ended in 2022, and a year later Roadtown Motors filed for bankruptcy. Potential customers such as Fisker Inc. and California startup Indiev have also gone out of business.
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