BANGKOK (AP) — 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.
SoftBank Group Corp. Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son attends an investor presentation at a Tokyo hotel on May 10, 2017. The letters read: "Softbank = A goose laying the golden eggs." (Kyodo News via AP)
FILE - The logo of SoftBank Corp. is seen at its shop in Tokyo, Thursday, April 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)
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 listens. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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)
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A 15-year-old student opened fire inside a study hall at a small Christian school in Wisconsin, killing a teacher and teenager and prompting a swarm of police officers responding to a second grader's 911 call.
The girl also wounded six others in Monday's shooting at Abundant Life Christian School, including two students who were in critical condition, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said. A teacher and three students were taken to a hospital with less serious injuries, and two of them were later released.
“Every child, every person in that building is a victim and will be a victim forever. ... We need to figure out and try to piece together what exactly happened," Barnes said.
Police said the shooter, identified as Natalie Rupnow, was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound when officers arrived and died en route to a hospital. Barnes declined to offer additional details about the shooter, partly out of respect for the family.
Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school — prekindergarten through high school — with approximately 420 students in Madison, the state capital.
Barbara Wiers, the school's director of elementary and school relations, said when they practice safety routines, leaders always announce that it's a drill. That didn’t happen Monday, just a week before Christmas break.
“When they heard, ‘Lockdown, lockdown,’ they knew it was real,” she said.
Wiers said the school does not have metal detectors but uses other security measures including cameras.
A motive for the shooting was not immediately known, nor was it clear if the victims were targeted, Barnes said.
“I don’t know why, and I feel like if we did know why, we could stop these things from happening,” he told reporters.
Barnes said police were talking with the shooter’s father and other family members, who were cooperating, and searching the shooter's home.
“He lost someone as well," Barnes said of the shooter's father. "And so we’re not going to rush the information. We’ll take our time and make sure we do our due diligence.”
The first 911 call to report an active shooter came in shortly before 11 a.m. First responders who were in training just 3 miles (about 5 kilometers) away dashed to the school for an actual emergency, Barnes said. They arrived three minutes after the initial call.
Investigators believe the shooter used a 9mm pistol, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Police blocked off roads around the school, and federal agents were at the scene to assist local law enforcement. No shots were fired by police.
Children and families were reunited at a health clinic about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the school. Parents pressed children against their chests while others squeezed hands and shoulders as they walked side by side.
Abundant Life asked for prayers in a brief Facebook post. Wiers said they're still deciding whether they will resume classes this week.
Bethany Highman, the mother of a student, rushed to the school and learned over FaceTime that her daughter was OK.
“As soon as it happened, your world stops for a minute. Nothing else matters,” Highman said. “There’s nobody around you. You just bolt for the door and try to do everything you can as a parent to be with your kids.”
In a statement, President Joe Biden cited the tragedy in calling on Congress to pass universal background checks, a national red flag law and certain gun restrictions.
“We can never accept senseless violence that traumatizes children, their families, and tears entire communities apart,” Biden said. He spoke with Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and offered his support.
Evers said it's “unthinkable” that a child or teacher would go to school and never return home.
The school shooting was the latest among dozens across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut; Parkland, Florida; and Uvalde, Texas.
The shootings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to doing active shooter drills in their classrooms. But school shootings have done little to move the needle on national gun laws.
Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.
Rhodes-Conway said the country needs to do more to prevent gun violence.
“I hoped that this day would never come to Madison,” she said.
Associated Press writers Alanna Durkin Richer, Ed White, Josh Funk and Hallie Golden and photographer Morry Gash contributed to this report.
Police walk outside the Abundant Life Christian School following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024 in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Families leave the SSMI Health Center, set up as a reunification center, following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024 in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
A family leaves the SSMI Health Center, set up as an reunification center, in Madison, Wis., following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
A family leaves the SSMI Health Center, set up as an reunification center, in Madison, Wis., following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Emergency vehicles are staged outside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., where multiple injuries were reported following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Police investigate as emergency vehicles are parked outside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., where multiple injuries were reported following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
A police officer directs traffic as emergency vehicles are parked outside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., where multiple injuries were reported following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Bus carrying students leave as emergency vehicles are parked outside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., where multiple injuries were reported following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
A child is embraced at the SSMI Health Center, set up as a reunification center, following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024 in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Students aboard a bus as they leave the shelter following a shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Families leave the SSMI Health Center, set up as a reunification center, following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024 in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Emergency vehicles are parked outside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., where multiple injuries were reported following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Scott Bauer)
A family leaves the Abundant Life Christian School after a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Emergency vehicles are parked outside the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., following a shooting, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Students aboard a bus as they leave the shelter following a shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
A family leave the shelter after multiple injuries were reported following a shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
