SoftBank Group Corp. CEO Masyoshi Son’s pledge to invest $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years marks the latest play by Big Tech in recent weeks to cozy up with the incoming administration.
During a visit to President-elect Donald’s Trump Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Monday, Son told reporters he was “very, very excited” over the plan, which is intended to create 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and related infrastructure, and invest in data centers, semiconductors and energy. (In October, SoftBank invested $500 million in OpenAI. It intends to increase its investment by snapping up $1.5 billion in OpenAI’s stock through a tender offer for existing shareholders.)
“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,” said Son, who visited Trump Tower in December 2016 with the promise to create 50,000 jobs as part of a $50 billion investment. [Softbank did pour money into the U.S. via its Vision Fund but ran into trouble when many of its deals floundered, including a multi-billion dollar investment in WeWork, the office space startup that ultimately filed for bankruptcy.]
Son’s commitment Monday is the highest yet by a company to expand investment in the U.S. since Trump’s election in November, and part of a growing recent trend. While campaigning, Trump vowed to cut corporate tax rates, impose tariffs of up to 60% on China to spur domestic investment by foreign companies, and deregulate various industries that presumably include tech. His nominees for several key economic posts signal good times ahead for Big Tech in merger-and-acquisition activity, less antitrust scrutiny, and laser focus on crypto.
“The SoftBank investment shows a dramatic game-changing event for tech” and the incoming administration, venture capitalist John Chambers said in an interview. “I think we will see M&A pick up in 2025, and IPOs in the second half of the year. Markets should be strong as a result.”
To drive home his point on tech’s importance, Trump has enlisted major donor Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc., X and SpaceX, to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, and nominated former PayPal executive David Sacks as the czar of AI and cryptocurrency. Brendan Carr, nominated to chair the Federal Communications Commission, has indicated a willingness to award more government contracts to satellite internet services run by Musk (Starlink) and Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos (Kuiper Systems).
“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.
The CEOs of tech giants, meanwhile, have met with Trump in recent weeks and are lining up to support Trump’s inauguration committee with seven-figure checks.
Those who trekked to Florida in the past month include Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook, and Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Bezos is scheduled to confab with Trump in the next few days.
Meta, Amazon and OpenAI have also said they plan to donate at least $1 million each to Trump’s inauguration fund.
