Author: Tristan Greene, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Deng Tong, Golden Finance
On December 16, Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese investment holding company Softbank Group, announced that his company will invest at least $100 billion in the United States to build artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The announcement was made at President-elect Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. According to Trump, the partnership will create 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence.
During the announcement, Masayoshi Son and Trump joked with each other, saying that the president-elect tried to double the initial amount. Son laughed and called Trump a "great negotiator" and promised to "work hard to make it happen."
Trump 2.0
President-elect Trump and Son have a long-standing relationship, with the two signing a similar partnership in 2016 during Trump's first administration.
At the time, SoftBank Group pledged $50 billion to the United States for infrastructure and promised to create 50,000 new jobs. It's unclear if any jobs were created, but a CNBC report suggests the funds were disbursed in 2020.
Meanwhile, SoftBank may face far fewer restrictions on foreign trade and investment markets in the United States under a second Trump administration than it did a few years ago. Trump has vowed to cut and/or consolidate banking regulators and has pledged to fast-track any investment over $1 trillion to include environmental impact regulations.
SoftBank’s AI Ambitions
Son’s partnership with Trump comes at a time of resurgence for the company, which lost 99% of its value when the dot-com bubble burst between 2000 and 2002 but is now on the rise again.
Analysts attribute much of the recovery to the company’s strategic investments in AI, including its $1.5 billion acquisition of ChatGPT maker OpenAI in November 2024.
The recent growth comes despite a series of failures associated with the Vision investment unit, including the closure of WeWork, which cost the company more than $14 billion.
SoftBank had about $175 billion in assets and equivalents at the end of 2024, but it’s unclear how much of that is available for immediate investment. According to Trump and Son, SoftBank Group will pay the full $100 billion by the end of 2028.