The A mysterious buyer From the former General Motors factory owned by Foxconn in Lordstown, Ohio is apparently Softbank, according to Bloomberg News. SoftBank wants to use the factory to build AI servers as part of the Stargate Data Center project being headed by the Japanese conglomerate, Openai and Oracle.
The report comes just a few days after Foxconn announced that it sold the factory, along with electric vehicle factory equipment, which was inside it, to a buyer it only called “Crescent Dune LLC” – an entity created in Delaware at the end of July. No company immediately responded to requests for comment.
It is unclear what this means for Monarch Tractor, a California based startup that develops electrical and autonomous farm equipment. Monarch was the only customer of Foxconn’s contract manufacturing operation at the Ohio Factory, after the other three of the prospective customers of Taiwanese technology Went bankrupt. Praveen Penmesta, general manager of a monarch, did not respond to email requests for comment.
SoftBank, Openai and Oracle announced the Stargate project one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. The effort currently involves a large data center that is built in Texas, but the companies involved said they want to build infrastructure in other states and countries. In May, Bloomberg reported that SoftBank struggled to align funding for the project, and that it had already been hampered by Trump’s myriad trade wars.
Foxconn purchased the factory in late 2021 from Electric vehicle Lordstown Motors. At the time, Foxconn President Young Liu said his company wants to develop the site in the “major electric vehicle manufacturing and R&D hub in North America.”
The sale closed in 2022 and, one year later, Lordstown Motors filed for bankruptcy. Prospective clients like Fisker Inc. And California starting Indiev also came out of business.
