The fall of Monarch Tractor ends with the acquisition by Caterpillar

Monarch Tractor’s assets were acquired by construction giant Caterpillar, after struggling to pursue a software business, according to documents and United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Access, first report By Bloomberg, it chronicles several difficult years for Monarch as it went through several rounds of layoffs, was sued by three different suppliers, and lost a major manufacturing partner to Foxconn. It also comes just weeks after the launch of partner and wine scion Carlo Mondavi he said He was “kicked out” after opposing CEO Praveen Penmetsa’s program development strategy.

Mondavi was not immediately available for comment. Penmetsa refused to comment beyond the words of the Monarch it was released last weekwhich claimed that its technology was acquired by an unidentified “world’s largest weapons company”. Caterpillar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Monarch has raised more than $200 million over the past eight years. It was founded in 2018 by Mondavi, Penmetsa, and former Tesla CEO Mark Schwager. His goal was to develop electric tractors for “selective drivers” that could also be used for regular travel in wineries, orchards, and dairy farms.

While Monarch began manufacturing small tractors at its facility in Livermore, California, it became one of four companies that partnered with Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn to take over the former General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio.

Foxconn planned to build EV startups Fisker, Lordstown Motors, and IndiEV, as well as Monarch tractors. But Foxconn only made a few electric cars for Lordstown Motors (who bought the factory) before the company collapsed. Fisker and IndiEV also broke up before Foxconn built the company’s future cars at the factory. Foxconn produced several hundred Monarch tractors at the factory, but the electronics giant sold the plant in August 2025 to SoftBankleaving Monarch without a producer.

By this time, Monarch had already suffered. They he retired in early 2024 before closing on $133 million. Just a a few months later it laid off more employees and said it was restructuring to focus on software and licensing of its autonomous technology.

Dealers who have purchased Monarch tractors say the company’s autonomous technology never worked well to begin with. One seller who sued Monarch in September 2025 he said the tractors were “incorrect” and “unable to handle themselves.” (Monarch has denied the claims in court.) Two other retailers have filed similar lawsuits against Monarch. In another case, a former attorney for the Monarchs wrote in January reservation That king he entered the workforce to benefit from the loan – in lieu of Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Mondavi announced his departure last month in a comment on an Instagram post from a farmer who complained about Monarch tractors. The winemaker wrote that he “left a year ago due to a significant difference in performance” after seeing “reliability issues” with Monarch tractors on his farm, as well as on his friends’ farms.

“I wanted to solve them using hardware changes, while the CEO believed that they could be solved more by using software. I strongly believed in a different approach but in the end I was closed and pushed out together with another co-founder,” he wrote.

The company it has been sold most of its remaining tractors at the beginning of this year.