The mystery buyer of 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 spearheaded by the Japanese conglomerate, OpenAI, and Oracle.
The report comes just a few days after Foxconn announced it had sold the factory, along with electric vehicle manufacturing equipment that was inside of it, to a buyer it only referred to as “Crescent Dune LLC” — an entity that was created in Delaware in late July. Neither company immediately responded to requests for comment.
It’s unclear what this means for Monarch Tractor, a California-based startup that develops electric and autonomous farm equipment. Monarch was the lone customer of Foxconn’s contract manufacturing operation at the Ohio factory, after the other three of the Taiwanese tech giant’s prospective customers went bankrupt. Monarch CEO Praveen Penmetsa has not responded to emailed requests for comment.
SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle announced the Stargate project one day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. The effort currently involves a large data center that is being built in Texas, but the companies involved have said they want to build infrastructure in other states and countries. In May, Bloomberg reported that SoftBank was struggling to line up funding for the project and that it was already being hampered by Trump’s myriad trade wars.
Foxconn bought the factory in late 2021 from electric vehicle startup Lordstown Motors. At the time, Foxconn chairman Young Liu said his company wanted to develop the site into the “most important 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 customers like Fisker Inc. and California startup IndiEV also went out of business.
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