In early March, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. released thousands of pages of documents in response to open records requests prompted by Foxconn Technology Group’s decision to locate in the state. The records run from the first days of the Foxconn pursuit through just after the project was announced in late July.
Details to emerge from the thousands of pages include:
- April 28: First White House meeting between Wisconsin and Foxconn officials. Gov. Scott Walker was set to participate by phone until the state found out Foxconn chairman Terry Gou was only attending meetings at which a state’s governor was physically present.
- $5.1 billion: The potential incentive Milwaukee 7 officials discussed as a frame of reference early on in the process in a memo that compared the Foxconn project to other mega projects.
- $5.74 million: WEDC’s estimated value of media coverage of the Foxconn announcements on July 26 and 27.
- $98 billion: The combined annual revenue of WEC Energy Group Inc., Rockwell Automation Inc., Briggs & Stratton Corp., GE Healthcare, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., Johnson Outdoors Inc., Johnson Controls International plc and Harley-Davidson Inc. Top executives of those companies were part of a July 10 dinner at Bacchus in downtown Milwaukee with Gou and other executives from the Taiwanese giant, which generated $135 billion in revenue in 2016.
