PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump joined SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son to announce plans by the Japanese company to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years.
Trump announced the planned investments, which are expected to focus on artificial intelligence, at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Monday, with Son at his side, along with Howard Lutnick, head of investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and Trump’s pick for commerce secretary.
“He’s doing this because he feels very optimistic about our country,” Trump said. The president-elect said that since his election, people have expressed interest in “coming in with tremendous amounts of money."
The investments by SoftBank, Trump said, are “a monumental demonstration of confidence in America’s future.”
Son said he wanted to “celebrate the great victory of President Trump” and that he will “bring the world into peace again.”
“I am truly excited to make this happen,” he said.
After the president-elect noted the $100 billion was double an investment pledge Son made in 2016 on the eve of Trump's first administration, the technology mogul said he was doubling down. Trump, appearing to joke, asked him at the microphone if he would double the investment again: “Would you make it $200 billion?”
Trump has in the past announced deals with companies overseas with much fanfare, though some companies in the end failed to deliver on those promised investments.
Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese company best known for producing Apple iPhones, won Trump's praise after announcing plans in 2017 to build a $10 billion complex that would employ 13,000 people in a small town just south of Milwaukee. But Foxconn's investment has been scaled back to a fraction of that after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Monday's announcement, however, is a win for Trump, who has used the weeks since the election to promote his policies, negotiate with foreign leaders and try to strike deals.
He had already threatened steep tariffs for Mexico and Canada, which prompted a visit from Canada’s prime minister aIn a post on his Truth Social site last week, Trump said anyone making a $1 billion investment in the United States “will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals.”nd a call with Mexico's president.
SoftBank was founded in 1981 by Son, a brash entrepreneur who studied at the University of California, Berkeley. SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together through its capital venture fund.
The company's investment portfolio includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia. Earlier this year, it joined a partnership with Saudi Arabia to build a robot factory in Riyadh.
After Trump won the White House the first time in 2016, he met with Son before taking office. Son then announced plans to create 50,000 jobs and invest $50 billion in U.S. startups, which Trump celebrated on social media, saying it never would have happened if he hadn’t won the election.
Not all investments have panned out. The most notorious was SoftBank's massive stake in the office-sharing company WeWork which sought bankruptcy protection last year. It also invested in the failed robot pizza-making company Zume.
Monday's announcement comes days after Trump vowed to expedite federal permits for energy projects and other construction worth more than $1 billion.
Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, along with Paul Wiseman and Zeke Miller in Washington, contributed to this story.
SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son smiles as he listens to President-elect Donald Trump during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla., as SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son, right, and Commerce Secretary nominee Howard Lutnick listen. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
House Speaker Mike Johnson, left, President-elect Donald Trump, from third left, Vice President-elect JD Vance and Trump's pick for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, attend the NCAA college football game between Army and Navy at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are drifting Monday ahead of a meeting by the Federal Reserve later this week that could set Wall Street’s direction into next year.
The S&P 500 rose 0.5% in afternoon trading, coming off its first losing week in the last four. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 43 points, or 0.1%, as of 1:10 p.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite rose 1.2%.
MicroStrategy climbed 6% as it continues to benefit from the surging price for bitcoin, which set another record. The software company has been building its hoard of the cryptocurrency, and its stock price has more than sextupled this year. It will soon join the Nasdaq 100 index.
Bitcoin topped $107,000, according to CoinDesk. It’s catapulted from roughly $44,000 at the start of the year, riding a recent wave of enthusiasm that President-elect Donald Trump will create a system that’s more favorable to digital currencies.
The market’s main event, though, will arrive on Wednesday when the Federal Reserve will announce its last move on interest rates for the year. The widespread expectation is that it will cut its main rate for a third straight time, as it tries to give a boost to the slowing job market after getting inflation nearly all the way down to its target of 2%.
The question is how much more it will cut rates next year, and Fed officials will release projections for where they see the federal funds rate ending 2025, along with other economic indicators, once their meeting concludes. Fed Chair Jerome Powell will also answer questions in a press conference following the meeting.
For now, the general expectation among traders is that the Fed may cut two more times in 2025, according to data from CME Group. But that number has been shrinking following reports suggesting inflation may be tougher to get all the way down to 2% from here. Besides last month’s slight acceleration in inflation, another worry is that Trump’s preferences for tariffs and other policies could lead to higher inflation down the line.
Expectations for a series of cuts to rates by the Fed have been one of the main reasons the S&P 500 has set an all-time high 57 times so far this year and is heading for one of its best years of the millennium. The economy has held up better than many feared, continuing to grow even after the Fed hiked the federal funds rate to a two-decade high in hopes of grinding down on inflation, which topped 9% two summers ago.
On Wall Street, Broadcom leaped 8.8% to help lead the S&P 500 for a second straight day after delivering a profit report last week that beat analysts' expectations. The technology company also gave a forecast for upcoming revenue that topped expectations, highlighting its artificial-intelligence offerings.
Honeywell rose 3.6% after saying it's still considering a spin-off or sale of its aerospace business, as part of a review of its overall business. It said it plans to give an update with the release of its fourth-quarter results.
They helped offset a drop for Nvidia, whose chips are powering much of the world's move into AI. Its stock fell 1.9%. Because it's grown so massive, with a total value topping $3 trillion, it was by far the single heaviest weight on the S&P 500.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was at 4.40%, where it was late Friday. The two-year yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, edged down to 4.24% from 4.25%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell modestly across much of Europe and Asia.
They sank 0.9% in Hong Kong and 0.2% in Shanghai after China reported lackluster economic indicators for November despite attempts to strengthen the world’s second-largest economy.
South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.2% as law enforcement authorities pushed to summon impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol for questioning over his short-lived martial law decree, and the Constitutional Court met to discuss whether to remove him from office or reinstate him.
AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
The New York Stock Exchange is shown behind the statue titled "Fearless Girl", Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Signs mark the intersection of Wall Street and Broadway in New York's Financial District on Wednesday Dec.11, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person stands in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People stand in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
