Gou’s resignation comes less than a week after he ended months of speculation by formally announcing his intention to run in Taiwan’s presidential election, scheduled for January.
Foxconn Technology Group’s billionaire founder Terry Gou resigned from his position on the company’s board as he ramps up his campaign to become president of Taiwan.
Gou stepped down as a director of the company he founded in 1974 due to “personal reasons,” according to a statement from Foxconn Saturday. Foxconn thanked Gou, who remains its largest shareholder, for his contribution to the group and the global electronics industry.
Having built Foxconn into one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world and a key supplier to Apple Inc., Gou had already handed day-to-day running of the business over to chairman and CEO Young Liu in 2019, when he first publicly flirted with the idea of entering politics.
