BREAKING: FAFO! 1,600 workers in a Trump-supporting Kentucky town are laid off after his EV tax-credit rollback guts a $5.8 billion Ford plant.
MAGA, elections have consequences.
Just ask the 1,600 workers in Glendale, Kentucky — a deeply red town where 64% of voters backed Donald Trump in 2024 — who are now out of work after Ford idled its $5.8 billion BlueOval SK battery plant.
The facility, a joint venture between Ford Motor Company and South Korean battery maker SK On, had barely been open four months before production came to a screeching halt.
Why? Ford says shifting federal policy “significantly disrupted” its long-term EV strategy — specifically Trump’s rollback of the $7,500 federal tax credit for new electric vehicles and the $4,000 credit for used EVs under his so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.”
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that when they pull the incentives, they kill the demand.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear didn’t mince words: “Those are 1,600 Kentuckians that lost their jobs solely because of Donald Trump pushing that big, ugly bill… I bet many, if not most, of them voted for him, and he basically fired them.”
That’s brutal. But it’s also the math.
Ford dissolved its partnership with SK On in December and is now pivoting toward energy storage instead of EV batteries. The BlueOval site might reopen in 2026 or 2027 under a different structure. “Employees will have the opportunity to apply,” the company says.
Opportunity to apply. For the jobs they just lost.
To be fair, some workers blame both Washington and Ford’s strategy, pointing to slower responses to competitors like Tesla. But even they admit axing the tax credits hurt sales momentum.
This is the reality of policy whiplash. Rip out incentives midstream, and billion-dollar investments stall. Factories close. Families scramble.
In Glendale, that’s 1,600 paychecks gone — in a county that went all in for Trump.
Turns out, when you gut clean-energy incentives, it’s not just EV buyers who pay the price. It’s workers.
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