SoftBank Group Corp. Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son told President-elect Donald Trump this month he would create 50,000 jobs in the United States. Money for the first 3,000 positions was announced on Monday.
Satellite startup OneWeb Ltd. said it raised $1.2 billion (about ¥141.6 billion) from SoftBank and existing investors, with the Japanese technology company providing $1 billion. The first round will fund the development of small, low-orbiting satellites and pay for the construction of a facility in Florida that will churn out 15 of these devices a week, said OneWeb, based at Exploration Park, Florida, an area near Kennedy Space Center. The investment is expected to create almost 3,000 new engineering, manufacturing and support jobs in the U.S. over the next four years, the startup added in a statement.
"Earlier this month I met with President-elect Trump and shared my commitment to investing and creating jobs in the U.S.," SoftBank's Son said in the statement. "This is the first step in that commitment."