President-elect Donald J. Trump’s first news conference since the election covered a wide range of topics, but it began with an eye-catching pledge: a $100 billion investment in the United States by SoftBank, a Japanese technology company.
Speaking from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Monday, Mr. Trump was accompanied by SoftBank’s chief executive, Masayoshi Son, perhaps best known in recent years for the speed and scope of his investments.
According to Mr. Trump, SoftBank will invest $100 billion in U.S. projects, intending to create 100,000 jobs. Trump transition officials said the investment will focus on technology and artificial intelligence over the next four years.
At the news conference, Mr. Trump immediately put the SoftBank chief on the spot, asking him to double the commitment. “He can actually afford to do that,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Son was noncommittal but called the president-elect a great negotiator.
SoftBank doesn’t have $100 billion in cash on hand. The money is expected to come partly from its balance sheet but also from money raised alongside partners, according to a person familiar with SoftBank’s plans.
Mr. Son, 67, started SoftBank in Tokyo in 1981 and has built it into one of the largest technology investors in the world. His firm has been known for its high-profile wins and losses, and Mr. Son — commonly known as Masa — has been known to grab headlines with eye-popping pronouncements, fund-raising and investments.
In December 2016, before Mr. Trump took office for the first time, Mr. Son promised a $50 billion investment in the United States, and said it would create 50,000 jobs. That announcement came shortly after Mr. Son had announced plans for SoftBank’s Vision Fund, a $100 billion vehicle for investing in technology companies worldwide. Half of that $100 billion came from Saudi Arabia.
Through that fund, Mr. Son became one of the largest backers of tech startups, including Uber and DoorDash. The fund was closely watched because of the speed at which it funneled money to fledgling startups but also because many ran into trouble, including the coworking company WeWork and a robot-making pizza company called Zume.
It is unclear how many jobs SoftBank created with its investments. When SoftBank’s 2016 pledge was made, Mr. Trump wrote on social media: “Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!”
More recently, SoftBank has had a big winner in the chip design firm, Arm, which is a key investment in its portfolio. SoftBank took the company public in September 2023, and its stock has since nearly tripled. Arm is poised to give the firm a key role in the rise of artificial intelligence.
SoftBank also recently invested $500 million in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and is looking to put another $1.5 billion into the company by buying employees’ shares, a person familiar said.
The investment announced Monday is likely to be focused on the infrastructure needed to support the A.I. boom via energy projects, data centers and chips, according to a person familiar with the company’s plans.
At SoftBank’s annual meeting in June 2023, Mr. Son said he had a revelation that he wanted to spend the remainder of his life and career as “an architect to build the future of humankind” through A.I.
Alongside Mr. Son, some of the other biggest names in tech have recently brandished money and compliments for the president-elect, as well as made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to publicly show their support. Amazon, Meta and OpenAI’s Sam Altman each donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee. Sundar Pichai and Sergey Brin of Google dined with Mr. Trump on Thursday, and Apple’s Tim Cook shared a meal with him the following day.
Marc Benioff, the chief executive of Salesforce and the owner of Time magazine, last week posted on X that it was “a time of great promise for our nation.” Time had awarded Mr. Trump its coveted “Person of the Year” designation, which the president-elect celebrated by ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
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