Donald Trump jumped at the chance earlier this week to parade the chief executive of SoftBank past the Trump Tower media spread and claim sole responsibility for the Japanese company's $50 billion investment in the U.S.
“He’s just agreed to invest $50 billion in the United States and 50,000 jobs," Trump said Tuesday after meeting with Masayoshi Son (“Masa”). Later Trump would tweet, "Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!”
In case you weren't sure who "we" was, Trump managed to work his own name into his tweet—making it extra Trumpelicious. Anyway, per usual, Trump's claim is falling apart under scrutiny. A month before the election, Son had already announced a $100 billion investment in the SoftBank Vision fund, a collaboration with Saudi Arabia and other investors. Son promised, "Over the next decade, the SoftBank Vision Fund will be the biggest investor in the technology sector.” The technology sector, eh? Michelle Ye Hee Lee writes:
The Journal noted that SoftBank “announced the $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund nearly a month before the election, when most pundits expected Mr. Trump to lose. Given its size, the fund was likely to put most of its money in the U.S., still home to the world’s most-promising technology companies. Last quarter, 60% of the money raised by companies backed by venture capital was in North America, according to a report by KPMG and CB Insights.”
“Son must have intended as much as half of the Vision Fund to go to the U.S., as he’s aware that there are great companies in Silicon Valley. But he chose this time to announce it as Trump is now going to be the next president,” Jun Tanabe, a SoftBank analyst at JPMorgan Securities in Tokyo, told The Post.
But hey, no one knows how to take credit where it isn't due like Trump.