Close Menu
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    StockNews24StockNews24
    Subscribe
    • Shares
    • News
      • Featured Company
      • News Overview
        • Company news
        • Expert Columns
        • Germany
        • USA
        • Price movements
        • Default values
        • Small caps
        • Business
      • News Search
        • Stock News
        • CFD News
        • Foreign exchange news
        • ETF News
        • Money, Career & Lifestyle News
      • Index News
        • DAX News
        • MDAX News
        • TecDAX News
        • Dow Jones News
        • Eurostoxx News
        • NASDAQ News
        • ATX News
        • S&P 500 News
      • Other Topics
        • Private Finance News
        • Commodity News
        • Certificate News
        • Interest rate news
        • SMI News
        • Nikkei 225 News1
    • Carbon Markets
    • Raw materials
    • Funds
    • Bonds
    • Currency
    • Crypto
    • English
      • العربية
      • 简体中文
      • Nederlands
      • English
      • Français
      • Deutsch
      • Italiano
      • Português
      • Русский
      • Español
    StockNews24StockNews24
    Home » Why is tech giant SoftBank investing over $100 billion in the US?
    Investments

    Why is tech giant SoftBank investing over $100 billion in the US?

    userBy userDecember 17, 2024No Comments5 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Telegram Pinterest Tumblr Reddit WhatsApp Email
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email


    BANGKOK — Japanese tycoon Masayoshi Son and President-elect Donald Trump have announced plans for technology and telecoms giant SoftBank Group to invest $100 billion in projects in the United States over the coming four years.

    Trump said the investments in building artificial intelligence infrastructure would create 100,000 jobs, twice the 50,000 promised when Son pledged $50 billion in U.S. investments after Trump’s victory in 2016.

    Son, a founder and CEO of SoftBank Group, is known for making bold choices that sometimes pay big and sometimes don’t. SoftBank has investments in dozens of Silicon Valley startups, along with big companies like semiconductor design company Arm and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. The stock market rally and craze for AI has boosted the value of its assets, but it’s unclear whether its investments will create that many jobs.

    Son founded SoftBank in the 1980s, expanding it from a telecoms carrier to encompass renewable energy and technology ventures. A leading figure in Japan’s business world, he was an early believer in the internet, pouring billions into Silicon Valley start-ups and other technology companies.

    Son comes from a humble background. While at the University of California, Berkeley, he invented a pocket translator that he sold for $1 million to Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp. He has made a career of risk-taking, pushing adoption of broadband services when the internet was still relatively new in Japan. His $20 billion takeover of U.S. mobile phone carrier Sprint Nextel Corp. in 2012 was Japan’s biggest foreign acquisition at the time.

    Son is philosophical about his missteps, such as SoftBank’s $18.5 billion investment in co-working space provider WeWork, which sought bankruptcy protection last year. SoftBank also invested in the failed robot pizza-making company Zume. Son is canny: SoftBank-related spending on lobbying and donations to U.S. politicians and parties runs into the billions of dollars. And both times Trump was elected, Son was quick to show his support.

    SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising values of some investments, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.

    Son built his fortune on early investments in search engine Yahoo and China’s Alibaba, an astute initial outlay of $20 million in what has become an e-commerce and financial empire with a market cap of more than $200 billion.

    SoftBank has investments in T-Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Microsoft, Nvidia and ride-sharing platform Uber, among hundreds of other companies that it groups together in its Vision Funds. The Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund and Abu Dhabi national wealth fund are among the biggest investors in those funds.

    The hundreds of start-ups that have received SoftBank investments include Nuro, a robo-delivery company; the dog-walking app Wag; South Korean logistics company Coupang; the Southeast Asian ride-sharing app Grab; and the office messaging app Slack.

    After several rough years, SoftBank returned to profitability in the last quarter, helped by returns from its Vision Fund investments. A big factor? Royalties and licensing related to its holdings in the UK-based computer chip-designing company Arm, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.

    SoftBank investor presentations have sometimes featured images of a goose labeled “AI Revolution” laying golden eggs.

    Son has said he believes artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence within a decade, affecting every industry, from transportation and pharmaceuticals to finance, manufacturing, logistics and others and that companies and people working with AI will be the leaders of the next 10 to 20 years. SoftBank’s roughly 90% stake in Arm has positioned it well for expansion of AI applications since most mobile devices operate on Arm-based processors.

    Trump and Son said the $100 billion that SoftBank has promised to invest will go to building AI infrastructure, but the nature of that spending remains unclear. The eventual impact of AI on jobs remains an open question, but much of its infrastructure is based on energy-guzzling data processing centers that are likely to employ relatively few people once they are built.

    Even if SoftBank actually invested the promised $50 billion last time Trump was headed to the White House, it’s unclear how many jobs that created.

    Shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic complicated matters. Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwan company best known for making Apple iPhones, won Trump’s praise after saying in 2017 it would build a $10 billion complex employing 13,000 people in a small town just south of Milwaukee. But that investment was scaled back drastically.

    SoftBank itself says it had 65,352 employees as of March.

    Officials in Tokyo praised Son’s initiative, viewing it as a goodwill gesture at a time of huge concern over whether Trump will impose blanket tariff hikes on imports from allies like Japan, as well as China.

    “Generally speaking, I believe expansion of investment through steady accumulation of efforts between Japanese and U.S. companies would help further strengthen Japan-U.S. economic ties, so I find it delightful,” said Yoji Muto, Japan’s Trade and Industry minister.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed.



    Source link

    Share this:

    • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X

    Like this:

    Like Loading...

    Related

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleWhy is tech giant SoftBank investing over $100 billion in the US?
    Next Article Fed unlikely to cut rates in early 2025, caution advised By Investing.com
    user
    • Website

    Related Posts

    Australia’s investment in large-scale wind and solar hits six-year peak | Energy

    February 13, 2025

    Investing in fixed-income ETFs as market weighs Fed forecasts

    February 12, 2025

    Citigroup launches new preferred stock series By Investing.com

    February 12, 2025
    Add A Comment

    Leave a ReplyCancel reply

    © 2025 StockNews24. Designed by Sujon.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

    %d