Trump's Latest Announcement: $50B Japan Investment

Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son is investing $50 billion in the US and creating 50,000 jobs in a deal that wouldn't have happened without Donald Trump, according to Donald Trump. Son, the CEO of SoftBank Group, joined Trump in the lobby of Trump Tower on Tuesday to announce the investment, reports Reuters. The tycoon, whose company controls wireless carrier Sprint and had a bid to merge it with T-Mobile turned down by US regulators, told reporters that he expects a lot of "deregulation" under Trump. "Masa (SoftBank) of Japan has agreed to invest $50 billion in the U.S. toward businesses and 50,000 new jobs," Trump later tweeted. "Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!"

Son says he plans to invest in startups but it's not clear exactly how the money will be spent—or how much of it was earmarked for the US before the election. An insider tells Bloomberg that the money will come from SoftBank's $100 billion technology fund, which includes $45 billion from Saudi Arabia. In Japan, SoftBank shares soared more than 6% after the announcement, though analysts aren't sure whether a Sprint-T-Mobile merger will get the green light from the incoming administration if Son tries again, reports the Wall Street Journal. "Mr. Trump is a shrewd businessman, and he has said he will put America first," says InfoCom analyst Hitoshi Sato. "I'm not so sure how he will view a Japanese company merging the nation’s largest mobile carriers." (A Trump tweet briefly made Boeing stock dip Tuesday.)