Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group recently donated $50 million to the Trump presidential library and foundation, two people familiar with the matter said, as companies continue to curry favor with the Trump administration.
The donation from SoftBank is one of the largest known gifts to the fund. The Trump library is in the process of raising hundreds of millions of dollars for the project, and donations from media and tech organizations including ABC News, Paramount, X and Meta as part of lawsuit settlements are also other sources of funds.
The donation is intended to support a focus at the library on the strength of the U.S.-Japanese relationship and the longstanding alliance between the two countries, particularly on strategic and economic issues, according to the two people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the not-yet-public donation.
SoftBank, which pledged in 2024 to invest $100 billion in American companies during Trump’s term, is one of the largest AI investors in the world and also has its own controlling stakes in tech companies, including a semiconductor chip designer.
The company, a major investor in OpenAI, lobbies on AI-related issues, according to recent filings, among other public policy topics.
SoftBank founder and chair Masayoshi Son has known Trump since his first term and has been to the White House multiple times.
The company made smaller previous donations to the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush presidential libraries but did so after they had been built, according to one of the two people familiar with the gift.
Spokespeople for SoftBank and the Trump library declined to comment.
Renderings of the Trump library that’s being built in Miami were recently unveiled. They pictured a large skyscraper overlooking the water in Miami, with Trump’s name emblazoned on the top.
The building is also set to house the controversial free Boeing jet that Qatar gifted Trump to use as Air Force One, once the government turns it over to the library.
The rendering also featured some of the greatest hits of Trumpworld: a famous golden escalator similar to the one that he used at Trump Tower in New York to announce his run for president and a golden statue of Trump lifting his fist.
