Softbank Group Corp founder and chief executive officer Masayoshi Son pledged to US president-elect Donald Trump nearly two weeks ago that he would invest in the US and create about 50,000 jobs.
On Monday, Softbank took what it described as the first step in fulfilling that commitment.
By leading a US$1.2 billion investment in OneWeb Ltd, which makes satellites for Internet access, Softbank said it was continuing to invest in new technology and supporting job creation in the US.
In their announcement, Softbank and OneWeb said the investment would create nearly 3,000 jobs in the US over four years.
“Earlier this month, I met with president-elect Trump and shared my commitment to investing and creating jobs in the US,” Son said in a statement. “America has always been at the forefront of innovation and technological development, and we are thrilled to be playing a part in continuing to drive that growth as we work to create a truly globally connected ecosystem.”
Son has positioned himself as a prospective partner of the coming Trump administration by promising to help spur job growth.
At a meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan this month, Son pledged to invest US$50 billion in the US, which, by his reckoning, would create about 50,000 jobs.
Trump has cited the pledge as a sign that he could persuade the private sector to lead improvements in the national economy.
However, much of the promised investment would come from a previously announced US$100 billion investment fund that Softbank is to lead, called the Softbank Vision Fund in which the conglomerate has joined Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and others.
The OneWeb investment does not come from the fund, a spokesman for Softbank said. Instead it will come directly from Softbank, as yet another investment in technology it views as potentially disruptive. Softbank is providing US$1 billion of the investment, while the rest is coming from OneWeb investors.
During its history, Softbank has struck deals for stakes in companies including the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), the San Francisco-based online lender SoFi and the Chinese ride-hailing start-up Didi Chuxing (滴滴出行).
The new deal will give Softbank and its partners nearly half of OneWeb, a four-year-old start-up based in Arlington, Virginia, that aims to beam Internet access to unconnected areas of the world through satellites it intends to launch.
OneWeb founder Greg Wyler said in an interview that it wanted to bring the Internet to every unconnected school in the world by 2022, then provide reasonably priced Internet throughout the world five years later by making about 720 satellites and putting them into orbit.
Softbank is joining a list of OneWeb partners that includes Airbus Group SE, Qualcomm Inc, Richard Branson of the Virgin Group Ltd and the satellite company Intelsat.
Wyler said in the interview that the job creation number came from estimates of jobs that had been or would be created in its ranks and at partners such as Qualcomm.
Many of the jobs, he said, would be at OneWeb’s satellite manufacturing plant in Exploration Park, Florida, which is a joint venture with Airbus.
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