Terry Gou (Chinese: 郭台銘; pinyin: Guō Táimíng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Koeh Tâi-bêng; born 18 October 1950) is a Taiwanese billionaire businessman and politician.

Gou is the founder and former chairman and chief executive officer of Foxconn, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics.

[1] Founded in 1974, Foxconn grew to become an international business empire, becoming the largest private employer and exporter in mainland China with a workforce of 1.2 million.

[4][5][6][7] In 2019, Gou resigned from Foxconn and joined the Kuomintang (KMT) to run for president, declaring he was instructed by the sea goddess Mazu in a dream to contest the election.

[12][13] In December 2022, Gou was credited with helping to successfully lobby the Xi Jinping Administration to ease zero-COVID rules implemented during the pandemic.

[15] Owing to his business background and image as a political outsider, Gou has been compared in international media to U.S. president Donald Trump.

Gou fulfilled his national service obligations by joining the Republic of China Air Force as an anti-aircraft artillery officer.

[20] As part of the airforce, he was stationed in Kinmen at a time when a potential People's Liberation Army invasion of the island as a stepping stone to invade Taiwan was a real fear.

[22] Terry Gou founded Foxconn, established as Hon Hai Precision Industry (鴻海科技集團) in Taiwan in 1974[23] with $7,500 ($44,000 in 2021 US dollars) in startup money and a workforce of ten elderly employees.

An aggressive salesman, Gou arrived uninvited at many companies' headquarters; often, he won orders despite security being called on him.

The manufacturing site became a campus that included housing, dining, medical care and burial for the workers, and even chicken farming to supply the cafeteria.

This was a breakthrough moment that led to building the bare bones chassis for other high-profile customers, including HP, IBM, and Apple.

[27] In December 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that a letter from Gou helped convince the Chinese government to ease Zero-COVID restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

[40][41] Gou declared that he had been instructed by the sea goddess Mazu in a dream to run as a candidate in the 2020 presidential election of the Republic of China.

[54][52] In 2012, a controversy arose after Gou jokingly compared Foxconn's workforce to animals during a company event at the Taipei zoo.

[58] In June 2012, Gou stated that he had "great esteem for Japanese (businessmen), especially those who are able to disagree with you in person and not stab you in the back, unlike the Gaoli bangzi".

While Gou first agreed to pay the money, when they next met he had police arrest Chen and the private investigator, Hsu Ching-wei, and sued them for extortion, stating he knew the affair would become "exposed one way or another".