The electric vehicle upstart Lordstown Motors was founded in 2018 and was hailed in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, after it took over a former General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio.
The company was then riding on the Republican president’s Made in America bandwagon. It promised to revive the auto industry in the region by creating the jobs that were lost after GM closed the plant.
But five years later, the company is the first of all young Tesla competitors to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy — in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware — after a long nightmare.