TAIPEI (Reuters) – Billionaire Terry Gou, founder of Taiwanese industrial group Foxconn, withdrew from the race for Taiwan’s presidency on Friday.
The businessman, who received the green light from the electoral commission last week after collecting enough valid signatures to run as an independent, said in a statement that he was “withdrawing his body but not his mind”.
He did not say what he would do next in the presidential campaign or who he might support: Hou Yu-ih, of Taiwan’s largest opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), or the former mayor of Taipei , Ko Wen-je, of the Taiwan People’s Party (PPT).
According to two sources close to Foxconn at Reuters, the decision by Terry Gou – who left his post as head of Foxconn in 2019 – represented a relief for the group’s management.
Sources told Reuters in late October that Foxconn, one of Apple’s main suppliers, was the subject of a tax investigation in China, and linked the investigation to the upcoming presidential election in Taiwan.
The government of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, frequently accuses Beijing of seeking to exert pressure, whether military or economic, to influence the outcome of elections on the island.
Foxconn declined to comment.
(Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; with contributions from Sarah Wu; French version Augustin Turpin, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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