Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer Directs $236 Million to Electric Battery Exec Who Has Already Lost Taxpayers Millions

Democrats

Dem governor lauds ‘historic’ investment after similar funding went to failed companies

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D., Mich.) / Getty Images Collin Anderson • October 26, 2022 5:00 am

Michigan Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer is making a $236 million taxpayer-funded bet on an electric battery executive whose last company lost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

Whitmer on October 5 announced a $236 million incentive package for Our Next Energy, an electric vehicle battery startup that plans to build a factory in the Great Lakes State. Weeks later, the Democrat said she was “proud” to join the company’s founder and CEO, Mujeeb Ijaz, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, which saw Whitmer laud Our Next Energy as “innovative,” “historic,” and “cutting-edge.” But Ijaz has a troubled history with public funding.

Before he launched Our Next Energy, Ijaz served as a top executive at fellow electric battery maker A123 Systems after founding its automotive division in 2008. One year later, A123 secured a $249 million grant from the Obama administration, with then-president Barack Obama predicting the company would “help power the American economy for years to come.” Instead, the opposite occurred. A123 lost $269 million during an eight-month period in 2012 alone, losses that were driven in part by the company’s production of defective battery cells for Fisker Automotive—on his LinkedIn, Ijaz specifically states he led A123’s production of “battery systems” for Fisker. In October 2012, A123 declared bankruptcy and was quickly sold to Chinese automotive conglomerate Wanxiang.

Whitmer’s decision to award Ijaz after A123’s high-profile collapse comes as the Democrat faces a difficult reelection bid against Republican challenger Tudor Dixon. That race has seen Whitmer repeatedly claim she’s added 25,000 “good-paying auto jobs” during her tenure, but as of May, Michigan had actually lost thousands of auto jobs on her watch. Whitmer likely hopes her green energy investments will help voters forget those losses—the Democrat used the announcement of her Our Next Energy incentive package, for example, to tout the creation of “2,000 new jobs.” But the investments could also provide political fodder for Dixon, who has already criticized Whitmer for another grant recipient: Gotion, a Chinese battery manufacturer whose leader is a Chinese Communist Party member.

“This is something we have to hold Gretchen Whitmer accountable for,” Dixon said in a September 27 video. “Your taxpayer dollars should be used to make sure your