Lordstown Motors, which lately declared chapter, is an organization that was constructed on plenty of guarantees, the first one being that it might make the Endurance, an EV pickup, and it might promote lots of Endurances, and that may make Lordstown’s traders some huge cash, together with the shareholders who purchased into Lordstown after it went public in 2020.

In the midst of attempting to do all of that, Lordstown entered into an settlement with Foxconn, finest referred to as the producers of Apple’s iPhone, to assist make the automobiles, which, lately, additionally grew to become the main focus of a lawsuit. Lordstown had beforehand promised to provide hundreds of Endurance pickups by now on the Ohio plant that GM used to run, however, to this point, solely 65 have been produced.

This has all been extra of a sideshow than any urgent concern for anybody other than Lordstown traders and their workers, who’ve most likely been in search of different investments and jobs for years now, in the event that they haven’t jumped ship already.

Nonetheless, final 12 months, Lordstown might nearly plausibly argue that they nonetheless had a shot at making and promoting all these vehicles, or at the very least have been going by means of the motions of attempting. On this vein, Bloomberg reported Wednesday about an episode final 12 months about Lordstown’s CEO attempting, on this case going to Taiwan and hanging out for days and never getting a key assembly he flew there to get.

From Bloomberg:

Lordstown Motors Corp. govt Ed Hightower flew to Taiwan from Detroit final 12 months for conferences with leaders of Foxtron, an organization affiliated with iPhone assembler Foxconn Expertise Group, for talks he thought would kick off improvement of a brand new electrical car. The CEO ghosted him.

Hightower spent three days in isolation because of Covid-19 protocols earlier than he might meet with the Taiwanese executives. He bought face time with Younger Liu, Foxconn’s chairman, and a few of his lieutenants. However the essential work was to be completed with Foxtron, which Foxconn majority owns. The concept was to accomplice on a mid-size crossover SUV that may be constructed within the Lordstown, Ohio, plant previously occupied by Common Motors Co.

The Foxtron boss refused to fulfill, Hightower stated in an interview. Hightower couldn’t get engineering drawings, knowledge and important licensing agreements wanted to get the mission going. Liu was chair of each corporations, however stated he couldn’t compel Foxtron to fulfill with Hightower. After nearly two weeks, the American govt stated he gave up and flew house.

“I made the journey to Taiwan to interrupt the logjam,” stated Hightower, who was Lordstown’s president on the time of the journey and is now its chief govt officer. “Lots of instances it’s about relationships,” Hightower stated, however on this case, “I used to be not in a position to meet my goal.”

Now, in our trendy society, it’s nonetheless potential to overlook a name, to have a miscommunication a couple of time and a spot, to overlook a enterprise assembly since you forgot otherwise you have been taking a dump or one individual simply didn’t really feel prefer it and begged off, as a result of life is brief and typically you’d slightly take a protracted lunch or, god forbid, do one thing enjoyable, as an alternative. However, like within the previous days, such excuses solely go to this point, and, when there’s a man who has traveled midway the world over to see you and has been ready for nearly two weeks, the message is obvious: You bought his messages about assembly up and have determined to not.

For the jilted Lordstown CEO, I hope he at the very least ate some good meals in his time abroad. By the point this form of factor occurs, you most likely already knew the connection was over anyway.