The world’s largest technology investor reportedly is preparing to increase his wager on the Trump economy.
Masayoshi Son, the billionaire technology entrepreneur from Japan, and his financial advisers are weighing several major possible deals for Sprint, the struggling American wireless operator controlled by Son’s SoftBank, the New York Times reported.
Last month, several executives from SoftBank spent a day in Washington talking to senior members of Trump’s economic team, bankers briefed on these meetings told the Times.
The discussions were purposely broad in nature, the bankers told the Times. However, SoftBank executives told White House officials that a lack of advanced digital investments threatens American competitiveness.
"Until the latest government-sponsored auction for spectrum bands finishes in late April, wireless companies are prohibited, owing to concerns about collusion, from pursuing various tie-ups," the Times reported.
Son late year promised President Donald Trump that he would create 50,000 new jobs in the United States through a $100 billion technology fund.
"Be it a tie-up with T-Mobile U.S., Sprint’s closest competitor, or a more ambitious marriage with the cable colossus Comcast, a transaction would allow Son to fulfill a long-held ambition to invest aggressively in wireless networks in the United States and enable next-generation mobile technology," the Times reported.
"The talks and the rush to assess potential deals for Sprint, the country’s fourth-largest mobile operator, highlight how the Trump administration’s push for lighter regulation and lower taxes has been a powerful lure for cash-rich investors the world over," the Times said.
Son has been on a tear of big investments, including the $32 billion acquisition of chip designer ARM Holdings Plc and the creation of the $100 billion Vision Fund with Saudi Arabia and other backers, Bloomberg has reported. Tokyo-based SoftBank is also one of Japan’s biggest wireless providers and controls Sprint Corp., the fourth-biggest wireless company in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Japan’s second-richest man’s recent deals include the $32 billion acquisition of ARM Holdings Plc, the chip designer that Son believes will play a key role in the development of artificial intelligence, and a $1.2 billion group-led investment in satellite startup OneWeb Ltd.
The Japanese telecoms and Internet company is also in the process of creating a $100 billion Vision Fund with Saudi Arabia and other backers that would make Son one of the world’s biggest technology investors, Bloomberg reported.
Son also recently reiterated his belief that computers will exceed humans in intelligence in three decades, and that within this period he expects one computer chip to have the equivalent of a 10,000 IQ.
“I really believe this,” he said at a keynote speech at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The growth in computer ability was “why I acquired ARM,” he said.
(Newsmax wires services contributed to this report).
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