Trump takes credit for SoftBank's $50 billion investment

NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that the CEO of Japanese company SoftBank pledged to invest $50 billion in the United States and create 50,000 new jobs. Trump said the deal wouldn’t have happened if Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton had won.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Masa from Japan,” Trump told reporters at Trump Tower as he introduced CEO Masayoshi Son, whose company, SoftBank, owns Sprint. “He's just agreed to invest $50 billion in the United States and 50,000 jobs. He's one of the great men of industry, so I just want to thank you very much. Thank you.”

Trump also touted the investment on Twitter, adding, "Masa said he would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election!"

Neither Trump nor Son provided further details of the arrangement, and questions to both SoftBank and the president-elect’s transition team were not immediately answered.

However, the contours of the deal Trump announced Tuesday appear in line with the company’s previous investment plans. In October, SoftBank announced it would create a $100 billion fund – with the backing of Saudi Arabia – in a bid to become the “biggest investor in the technology sector,” Son said at the time.

SoftBank already has considerable business interests in the United States, where it owns Sprint and has long aspired to purchase another wireless giant, T-Mobile. SoftBank in 2014 abandoned a bid for T-Mobile after the Obama administration raised competition concerns with such a merger.

Meanwhile, SoftBank’s Son revealed in November 2015 that he planned to cut “thousands” of jobs at Sprint as part of a turnaround effort following his purchase of the U.S. wireless company in 2013.

Son on Tuesday did not say whether the new investment pledge was a result of Trump's victory, but he did say he was celebrating Trump's White House win.

“I just came to celebrate his new job,” Son said. “I said, ‘This is great, the U.S. will become great again.’” He added that his company would invest in start-up companies in the United States.