More than a year of work to bring Amazon.com Inc’s headquarters and tens of thousands of jobs to New York City on Thursday ended with a few phone calls.
Amazon senior vice president of corporate affairs Jay Carney told New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that the world’s biggest online retailer would not go ahead with plans to invest US$2.5 billion to build a second head office in the New York City borough of Queens.
Carney told New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio the same shortly afterwards.
Photo: Getty Images/AFP
Abruptly scuttling its Big Apple plans blindsided Amazon’s allies and opponents alike.
The decision came together only in the last 48 hours, made by its senior leadership team and Amazon founder and chief executive officer Jeff Bezos, the company said.
Yet by some measures the decision was months in the making, as community opposition signaled to the company that it was not entirely welcome.
Seattle-based Amazon captivated elected officials across North America in September 2017 when it announced it would create more than 50,000 jobs in a second headquarters dubbed HQ2.
Cities and states vied desperately for the economic stimulus, with New Jersey offering US$7 billion in potential credits and the mayor of an Atlanta suburb promising to make Bezos mayor for life of a new city called “Amazon.”
A backlash began in earnest when Amazon announced two winners to split the offices in November last year: Arlington, Virginia and New York’s Long Island City neighborhood, with New York offering incentives worth US$1.53 billion to Amazon.
The company could apply for US$900 million more, too.
New York State Senator Michael Gianaris and City Council Member Jimmy van Bramer said that day that it was “unfathomable that we would sign a US$3 billion check” to one of the world’s most valuable companies considering the city’s crumbling subways and overcrowded schools.
New York City Council meetings in December and January showed Amazon executives who showed up the stern opposition they could expect from some elected officials and labor organizers.
Protesters interrupted the meetings. A television report showed people unfurling signs saying, “Amazon delivers lies,” and “Amazon fuels ICE deportations” — a reference to the company’s cooperation with the US department in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Amazon felt that a small number of local and state officials had no desire to collaborate on a path forward, the company said later, despite what it said was strong popular support for its project.
Tension ratcheted up earlier this month, when Gianaris was nominated to a state panel set to vote next year on whether to approve the financial terms for Amazon.
Days later, Amazon executives weighed the pros and cons of whether to follow through with its New York headquarters, two people briefed on talks inside the company said.
Concerned that Amazon could be in limbo for more than a year ahead of the state panel’s vote, the growing consensus within the company was that it did not make sense to move ahead in the face of persistent opposition with a headquarters in New York City, where it already has 5,000 employees.
Amazon had no binding legal contracts to acquire or lease the land for the project, the people said.
Company officials also concluded Amazon could shift the jobs that would have been created in New York to other corporate centers it has across the US.
Reopening talks with former HQ2 contestants did not make sense, the people said.
Gianaris blamed Amazon for the reversal.
“Amazon never showed willingness to look seriously at the concerns that were raised,” he said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San