“Son offered a similar commitment after Trump’s first presidential win in 2016, when Son pledged a $50 billion investment and the creation of 50,000 new jobs. But while SoftBank does seem to have followed through on its investment promise, it’s “unclear” that the jobs followed — a reminder that splashy announcements like Son’s latest should not necessarily be taken as iron-clad guarantees.
While CNN’s Allison Morrow and David Goldman found that SoftBank did invest roughly $75 billion in US companies after its first pledge, it “never made clear how many of those jobs it actually created — and how many were actually a result of a new investment,” they write.
Vox reached out to SoftBank for clarity on its previous investments and how many jobs they generated but did not receive a response prior to publication.
Other corporate investments that Trump touted in his first term had underwhelming returns as well. In the case of Foxconn, a Taiwanese manufacturer, for example, the company promised a $10 billion Wisconsin plant and 13,000 jobs, and fell short on both counts. An updated version of the deal eventually saw Foxconn reduce that figure to roughly 1,500 jobs.
According to a 2019 ProPublica investigation, multiple other corporations, including Alibaba and Broadcom, were also cited by the Trump administration as sources for new jobs, though many of these gains never materialized.
Such pledges, though, still have value to a president who once vowed to run the country like a business, regardless of their eventual success. They provide a good headline for Trump, and a chance to burnish his self-created image as a “dealmaker.”
Now that Trump is returning to power, business leaders are once more looking for ways to build influence with the administration, often with the goal of shaping favorable regulatory outcomes or government contracts. The SoftBank announcement suggests touting prominent job commitments, including those the company might not be able to deliver on, will continue to be one of those avenues.”
https://www.vox.com/politics/391601/trump-softbank-job-promises