As camera lights flashed, President-elect Donald J. Trump strode across the lobby of Trump Tower with Masayoshi Son, the colorful Japanese entrepreneur, in December.

“This is Masa of SoftBank from Japan,” Mr. Trump said before boasting that Mr. Son’s SoftBank — which is in the process of amassing a giant $100 billion fund — had pledged to invest $50 billion in the United States and would create 50,000 jobs here.

“He’s one of the great men of industry, so I just want to thank you very much,” he told Mr. Son, who was an early investor in Yahoo and Alibaba. Just last month he bought the Wall Street firm Fortress Investment Group for $3 billion.

The photo op was intended to be part of Mr. Trump’s “America First” campaign.

Yet unmentioned that day — and largely unremarked upon — is that Mr. Son’s $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund could reasonably be described as a front for Saudi Arabia and perhaps other countries in the Middle East.

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Saudi Arabia is the majority investor in the fund, with some $45 billion pledged. A state-owned investment company from Abu Dhabi, Mubadala Development, is in negotiations to invest $15 billion as well. Qatar is also in talks to invest in the fund.

This is not a secret to anyone who has been paying even a modicum of attention to the news that has dribbled out about the fund.

While Mr. Son has pledged to provide a quarter of the fund himself, hardly any of the money comes from investors in the United States — with the exception of several nominal $1 billion investments, including from Apple, Qualcomm and Larry Ellison of Oracle.

Mr. Trump’s embrace of Mr. Son, and therefore Saudi Arabia, to take over some of Silicon Valley’s most promising companies and intellectual property could be seen as being at odds with his nationalistic talk.

“Would you take money from the Saudis?” Sean Hannity of Fox News asked him last year.

“No,” Mr. Trump replied, without missing a beat.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump criticized Hillary Clinton’s ties to Riyadh. “Crooked Hillary says we must call on Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding hate,” Mr. Trump wrote on Facebook. “I am calling on her to immediately return the $25 million plus she got from them for the Clinton Foundation!”

Those references were made in the context of politics, but should they also extend to business?

This column isn’t taking a position on the politics or the morality of taking money from Saudi Arabia. But it is a conversation that is worth having.

Just as the United States has tried to become energy independent from the Middle East for economic and political reasons, we may be on the verge of taking the opposite tack when it comes to our innovative start-ups.

While Mr. Trump wants to stimulate foreign investment in the United States, he has also talked tough about the Middle East and terrorism. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were citizens of Saudi Arabia.

In true Trumpian style, he has made somewhat contradictory statements about Saudi Arabia: “Saudi Arabia — and I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me,” Mr. Trump said at a campaign stop. “They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”

Obama sold $115 billion worth of military equipment to the Saudis, not one word of protest from the retarded leftists on that.

Looks like they shifted from "muh russia" to "muh saudi arabia" after they got caught sticking their necks out too far.

Ive got no dog in this fight as yet - what would the progressives raising the issue like to see happen?

... wrote on Mar 7^th, 2017 at 1:49pm:



Oh Russia is still VERY MUCH in the mix as more and more investigations get started. Once a special prosecutor is announced, the heads will start rolling and end with Trumps impeachment.

... wrote on Mar 7^th, 2017 at 2:36pm:


Constructive dialogue?  All that tells me is that you have finally tweaked to the fact that Trump is a nutter and you are trying to find a way to backpedal from the insanity you have posted for the last year. The reality is that Trump is headed towards impeachment. He shows no evidence of having a clue what he is doing or even of basic reality. He is a pathological liar who has surrounded himself with other liars while the rest of the WH is leaking madly trying to force Trump to do the right thing - which he has no idea of.

A constructive dialogue is to discuss what happens when Pence is President and Trump is either in jail or in a straitjacket (or both)

... wrote on Mar 7^th, 2017 at 2:56pm:


So have you, but you seem to be wavering. That is of course, a good thing, because by now, only fools and idiots stand behind Trump and his growing narcisistic insanity. Almost every day brings yet another unprecedented, truly crazy trump act and behind all that we have the monumental spectre of the possibility that Trump et al colluded in a treasonous act with the Russians to steal the election. UNproven of course, but the flood of lies, falsehoods and attempts to impede justice, makes one wonder if there is indeed a new Benedict Arnold and he sits in the Oval Office.

Baronvonrort wrote on Mar 7^th, 2017 at 1:59pm:


No, it wasn't.

Why resort to lying?

Baronvonrort wrote on Mar 7^th, 2017 at 3:55pm:


Sorry, Baron, are you saying you're not telling fibs about Obama banning Muslims?

Please explain.