Following a 45-minute meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, SoftBank executive Masayoshi Son revealed his plans to invest $50 billion in America, creating 50,000 new jobs in fields such as Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, deep learning, and robotics. Mr. Son, whose SoftBank conglomerate controls U.S. carrier Sprint, claims the money will be sourced from a $100 billion investment fund set up by himself, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund, and potential partners.
Masayoshi Son is an active investor, having spent $22 billion to acquire the majority of Sprint in 2013, $1 billion in an investment round for online lender Social Finance Inc., and $32 billion on purchasing U.K. chip designer ARM Holdings, among various investments in countries such as South Korea and India. He also wanted to merge Sprint and T-Mobile, joining forces against AT&T and Verizon in the U.S., but regulators rejected his plans.
Informed investors and analysts believe that Son could make another lunge at T-Mobile after Trump is elected and a new chairman heads the Federal Communications Commission. However, he declined to comment his present interest in T-Mobile.
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