In a joint appearance Monday morning, President-elect Donald Trump and Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of the Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank Group, announced that the company would invest $100 billion in U.S. companies over the coming four years, saying that the infusion of cash would create 100,000 jobs in fields such as artificial intelligence.
Son attributed the decision to make the investment directly to Trump’s win in last month’s presidential election.
“I would really like to celebrate the great victory of President Trump,” Son said. “My confidence level [in] the economy of the United States has tremendously increased with his victory. So, because of that, I’m now excited to commit this 100 billion dollars and 100,000 jobs into the United States.”
In introducing Son, Trump pointed out that eight years ago, after Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, SoftBank had made a similar pledge, promising $50 billion in U.S. investments and 50,000 new jobs.
“And they did,” Trump said. “They kept that promise in every way, shape and form.”
The president-elect then went on to press Son to double his pledge, saying “I’m going to ask him right now. Would you make it $200 billion?”
Son reiterated his promise of $100 billion, but said he would “try” to get to $200 billion.
“All right. $200 billion,” Trump said.
Son burst into laughter, telling the crowd Trump is “a great negotiator.”
‘Trump effect’
After the announcement Monday, Trump’s rapid response director, Jake Schneider, sent media outlets an email attributing the announcement to what he called the “Trump Effect.”
“President Trump is already delivering on his commitment to re-make America into the world’s manufacturing superpower once again — and he hasn’t even taken office yet,” Schneider wrote. “It’s all centered around his Made in America agenda, which incentivizes companies that make their products in America with American workers.”
He added, “In January, President Trump will immediately begin implementing bold reforms to restore the nation to full prosperity and make sure AI, emerging technologies, and the other industries of tomorrow are created, built, and grown in the United States.”
Hits and misses
Since founding SoftBank in 1981 at age 24, Son has become one of the most storied — and controversial — technology investors in the world. The company has several investment funds and owns significant shares of hundreds of companies across multiple fields, including telecommunication, robotics, internet services, e-commerce, artificial intelligence and much more.
Throughout his decades-long career, Son has made headlines for spectacular victories as well as disastrous failures. For a time, at the beginning of 2000, he claimed to be the world’s richest man, with a fortune worth an estimated $78 billion amassed by buying up internet startups. However, the collapse of the dotcom bubble just months later wiped out more than 90% of his wealth.
Son started rebuilding his business that same year, and a $20 million investment that bought SoftBank a 34% ownership share in a little-known Chinese e-commerce startup known as Alibaba would prove key to his fortunes. In 2014, Alibaba went public at a price that valued SoftBank’s shares at $58 billion, some 2,900 times its initial investment.
Along the way, Son successfully managed to merge mobile telecommunications firms T-Mobile and Sprint, creating one of the largest U.S. service providers in 2020. Just two years later, though, SoftBank suffered disastrous losses with the collapse of the office-sharing startup WeWork, in which it had invested heavily, as well as other failed investments by in-house venture and hedge funds.
At the time, Son announced that he was retiring from public life. However, by 2023, he was back in the headlines when ARM Holdings, a British computer chip design firm that SoftBank bought at a valuation of $30.8 billion in 2016, went public in the U.S. at a valuation of $54.5 billion.
Choosing the West over China
Lionel Barber, the former editor-in-chief of the Financial Times, told VOA that he believes Son’s appearance at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort Monday signals more than just an international investor seeking to get on the good side of an incoming U.S. president.
Barber is the author of Gambling Man: The Wild Ride of Masayoshi Son, the first biography of the investor by a Western author, which will be published in the U.S. next month. He said that when Son made his pledge of $50 billion in 2016, he and Trump had clearly aligned interests.
“Trump wanted a big signal about business confidence in the Trump agenda and Masayoshi Son and SoftBank wanted to get in with the new Republican administration with an eye to getting [a] blessing for his big project, which was Sprint merging with T-Mobile,” Barber told VOA by phone.
Now, though, he sees something larger at play.
“Obviously, the world looks very different. Eight years on, we’ve got wars around the world, and we’ve also got de-risking and decoupling between China and the West,” Barber said.
In his last interview with him, Barber told VOA, Son said that he had realized that it was necessary for SoftBank to make a choice between China and the West.
Paraphrasing Son, Barber said, “He basically said, ‘We understand the world’s changed. We’ve been a global investor. We’ve been the biggest investor in China and the biggest investor in America. But now we have to choose. We’ve chosen the West.’”
“So, I see his getting into Mar-a-Lago as [saying], ‘I’ve chosen the West. I’ve chosen America, and I’m going with Trump.’”
Investment details unclear
The announcement at Mar-a-Lago did not include any details about specific investments that SoftBank intends to make, and not all foreign investments touted by Trump over the years have come to pass.
Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn in 2017 promised a $10 billion investment in a manufacturing facility in Wisconsin that was later dramatically scaled back.
Even SoftBank’s 2016 pledge is difficult to consider truly fulfilled unless the more than $20 billion the company poured into Sprint in 2013 — three years before making the pledge — is included in the total.
Barber, Son’s biographer, said he has some doubts about SoftBank’s ability to identify $100 billion in U.S. investments over the course of four years.
“I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I haven’t figured out how he gets to 100 billion, yet,” Barber said.
However, he said, it’s also important not to underestimate Son’s ability to achieve unexpected successes.
“You can’t write him off,” Barber said. “That’s what he does. He’s a bloody genius in that respect.”
