Associated Press

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Foxconn Technology Group chairman Terry Gou, who disclosed Monday that he plans to step away from day-to-day operations at the world’s largest electronics provider, now says he is mulling a run for president of Taiwan.

Gou said he would make a decision “in a day or two” on a possible presidential bid, according to Taiwan’s official Central News Agency. He said that if he decided to run, he would take part in the opposition Nationalist Party primary rather than mount an independent bid.

The Nationalists favor closer ties with Beijing, a policy that accords with Gou’s massive business interests in China. Any candidate is expected to face a crowded field in the 2020 polls, in which President Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party says she will seek a second four-year term.

Gou told reporters Monday at an event in Taipei that he would step back from daily operations at Foxconn. He said he wants to work on a book about his management philosophy honed over 45 years and prepare a younger generation to eventually take over operations at the company.

Foxconn counts Apple, Google and Amazon as customers and has said it will build a manufacturing facility in Wisconsin.

“The major direction of the company will still be guided by me. But I will gradually step back from the front-line operations,” said Gou, who is in his late 60s.

“I feel that I should tone down my personal influence ... let young people learn sooner in order to take my position as soon as possible so that I can have more free time to work on long-term planning for the company’s future.”

Foxconn announced in 2017, to much fanfare, that it planned to invest $10 billion in Wisconsin and hire 13,000 people to build an LCD factory that could make screens for televisions and other devices.

FULL COVERAGE:Foxconn in Wisconsin

But the company has shifted from its original plans more than once, feeding uncertainty and skepticism about its intentions.

Disclosure of the changes began last year with Foxconn saying it would hire far fewer factory workers and many more engineers. Then the firm acknowledged something that had been rumored in the industry — that it no longer planned to build the massive "Gen 10" factory specified in its contracts with state and local government, but rather would build a smaller and less costly "Gen 6" plant.

Foxconn cited a changing global market as prompting the change.

Two and a half months ago, even those plans were placed in doubt, as news reports from Asia quoting Foxconn executives raised questions about whether the company would build any factory at all in Wisconsin.

Gou himself, in a speech in Taiwan, indicated Foxconn had shifted its Wisconsin focus away from mass production and toward research, Chinese speakers who listened to a recording of the speech said.

Just hours after that speech, however, President Donald Trump, who has pushed for a Foxconn factory in the U.S., called Gou. And later that day, the company publicly recommitted itself to building an LCD factory in Racine County. Foxconn since has awarded contracts for utility and road work on the site, in Mount Pleasant.

Rick Romell of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.