(Bloomberg) — SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is expected to announce a plan to invest $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years during a visit with President-elect Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.
Son will provide details of the plan, which includes a promise to create 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence and related infrastructure, later on Monday, the people said, asking not to be identified because the news is not yet public. CNBC first reported details of the company’s investment plans.
Representatives for the Tokyo-based company did not respond to requests for comment outside normal business hours.
The Japanese billionaire joins several technology executives seeking to win favor with the new administration. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will donate $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund after previously donating to President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign. Meta Platforms, Amazon.com and artificial intelligence startup Perplexity they also pledged $1 million each.
Son built a strong relationship with Trump the last time he was president, visiting the US in December 2016 and promising to invest $50 billion. SoftBank’s Vision Fund actively invested in US companies, but later ran into trouble as many of the investments failed.
One question now is where SoftBank will raise the capital for its latest pledge and where it will invest. During Trump’s last term, Son was raising his $100 billion Vision Fund with money from outside investors and put the money into startups like WeWork, Uber Technologies Inc. and DoorDash Inc.
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Son has been stepping up efforts to increase investments directly from SoftBank itself, while also hiring employees from the Vision Fund to help navigate such deals. The company’s finances rebounded 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.
Still, SoftBank doesn’t have the cash on hand to fulfill Son’s promise. The company had 3.8 trillion yen ($25 billion) in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet at the end of September. (Updates with additional details on SoftBank’s investments from sixth paragraph)
