New York state paid $69 million for ventilators to an engineer with no background in medical supplies after he tweeted at President Donald Trump and the White House coronavirus task force recommended him as a vendor, BuzzFeed News reported.

The ventilators reportedly never arrived.

New York has since terminated its contract with the man, a Silicon Valley electrical engineer named Yaron Oren-Pines, and is working to recover its money, BuzzFeed News said.

BuzzFeed News said that when reached for comment, Oren-Pines told the outlet, "Neither me nor my company is providing any comment on this," and hung up the phone.

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New York state paid $69 million for ventilators to a man with no background in medical supplies after he tweeted at President Donald Trump and the White House coronavirus task force recommended him as a vendor, BuzzFeed News reported on Wednesday.

The ventilators never arrived, the report said.

On March 27, as the novel coronavirus was surging through the US, Trump urged Ford and General Motors on Twitter to "START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!"

Yaron Oren-Pines, an electrical engineer in Silicon Valley, replied: "We can supply ICU Ventilators, invasive and noninvasive. Have someone call me URGENT."

BuzzFeed News reported that three days later New York shelled out $69.1 million to Oren-Pines for 1,450 ventilators — at least three times the standard price for high-end models. Citing a state official, the outlet said that "New York entered into the contract with Oren-Pines at the direct recommendation of the White House coronavirus task force." It was unclear who specifically authorized the recommendation.

New York has since terminated the contract and is trying to recover its money, BuzzFeed News said.

BuzzFeed News said that when reached for comment, Oren-Pines told the outlet, "Neither me nor my company is providing any comment on this," and hung up the phone.

In a similar case reported by The Washington Post earlier this month, the Trump administration awarded a $55 million contract for N95 masks to a bankrupt company with no employees.

That company, Panthera Worldwide LLC, describes itself as a tactical training company for the US military and other government agencies and has no record of producing medical supplies or equipment, The Post said.

Panthera's parent company filed for bankruptcy protection last fall, and one of its owners last year said it'd had no employees since May 2018, The Post reported, citing sworn testimony. It is no longer listed as an LLC in Virginia, where its main office is, after fees went unpaid.

The World Health Organization last month declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. As of Thursday, more than 3 million people around the world had been infected. The US is the global epicenter of the outbreak, with more than 1 million confirmed cases.

New York is the hardest-hit state, with more than 300,000 cases and 23,000 deaths. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday that the death rate in the state had been flat for three consecutive days but that the number of new hospital admissions had increased slightly for the first time in 12 days.