(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Donald Trump announced that SoftBank Group Corp. planned to invest $100 billion in the US over the next four years during an event alongside Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son on Monday.
“He’s doing this because he feels very optimistic about our country since the election,” Trump said, adding that the pledge represented a “demonstration of confidence in America’s future.”
“I’m very, very excited,” Son, who met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, told reporters. “I would really like to celebrate the great victory of President Trump and my confidence level to the economy of the United States has tremendously increased with his victory.”
The plan includes a pledge to create 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence and related infrastructure, including investments in data centers, semiconductors and energy, according to a person familiar with the plan.
The Japanese billionaire joins a number of technology executives angling to win favor from the incoming administration. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will give $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund after having previously donated to President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign. Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and artificial intelligence startup Perplexity have also pledged $1 million apiece.
Son forged a strong relationship with Trump the last time he was president, making a similar visit to Trump Tower in December 2016 and promising the creation of 50,000 jobs as part of a $50 billion investment.
SoftBank was one of several companies that made such pledges at the time. The company did actively invest in US companies through its Vision Fund investment vehicle. But Softbank later ran into trouble as many of its deals floundered, including a multi-billion dollar investment in WeWork, the office space startup that ultimately filed for bankruptcy.
Son’s announcement this time marks the highest-profile commitment by a company to expand investment in the US since Trump’s election win. The president-elect promised during his campaign to boost the US economy by cutting corporate tax rates, using tariffs to spur domestic investment by foreign companies and rolling back regulations Republicans say have hampered economic growth.
Trump also promised to speed permitting for anyone willing to invest $1 billion or more for projects in the US. While he offered no specifics on how he would accelerate approvals, his pledge addressed a key concern among tech and energy companies that regulatory delays risk slowing upgrades to US energy infrastructure needed to drive development in AI.
“This is President Trump delivering on the promise he made to the American people on the campaign trail that he was going to make the United States of America the manufacturing superpower of the world,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump transition, told Fox Business on Monday.
But Trump also told voters that he wanted foreign-owned corporations to become US-based entities, pledging tax cuts and deregulation to lure companies onshore. The Softbank investment shows that is unlikely to come to fruition, with global companies eager to make announcements viewed favorably by Trump, but don’t want the commitment of uprooting their headquarters and supply chains.
It’s also unclear how much of the SoftBank pledge would be fresh investment. Even before the election, Son had been planning a $100 billion chip venture to develop chips for artificial intelligence, Bloomberg News reported.
In the months following Trump’s election to his first term eight years ago, several major companies announced spending pledges — some of which were tied to projects long in the making. Ford Motor Co., for example, announced plans to cancel a new $1.6 billion plant in Mexico and invest in US facilities after strong criticism from Trump. The company announced $1.2 billion in investments in three Michigan factories, but some of those plans had been part of contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers union in 2015, Ford’s president of the Americas said at the time.
Another question with the SoftBank announcement is where the company will get the capital for its latest pledge. During Trump’s last term, Son was raising his $100 billion Vision Fund with money from outside investors and poured the cash into startups such as WeWork, Uber Technologies Inc. and DoorDash Inc.
SoftBank doesn’t have the cash on hand to deliver on Son’s pledge this time. The company had the 3.8 trillion yen ($25 billion) in cash and equivalents on its balance at the end of September.
Still, the company’s finances have recovered with the initial public offering of chip design firm Arm Holdings Plc. SoftBank still owns about 90% of Arm, which now has a market capitalization of about $160 billion.
Son has vowed to increase his investments in artificial intelligence, which he has described as a technology that will change virtually every business. SoftBank invested $500 million in OpenAI in October and is aiming to increase that investment by acquiring up to $1.5 billion in the startup’s stock through a tender offer for existing shareholders.
“President Trump is a double down president, I’m going to have to double down,” Son said at the Mar-a-Lago event.
Trump, with a grin, said he wanted Son to actually invest $200 billion in US ventures.
“I will really try,” Son said with a laugh.
--With assistance from Michael Shepard, Hadriana Lowenkron and Lynn Doan.
(Updates with background on investment pledges from 12th paragraph)
