Billionaire’s Bold plan: Trump-Branded Tech Parks Across America
Billionaire Masayoshi Son has a plan to invest hundreds of billions of dollars from Japan into building Trump-branded industrial parks on federal land throughout the U.S., according to a new report from the wall Street Journal. The goal is to manufacture high-tech hardware, and while the specifics are still being worked out, it’s a pretty ambitious idea. the Journal even describes the early plans as “…ambitious to the point of science fiction.”
Inside Softbank, where Son is CEO, the project-internally called Project Crystal Land-has been developing for about six months, the Journal reports. initial ideas included building a $1 trillion city in the Arizona desert near Phoenix, pitched to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as a competitor to Shenzhen, China-the center of China’s tech industry, located near Hong Kong.
By summer, Son presented his idea directly to President Trump, and it featured some incredibly futuristic elements, including “robot-filled semiconductor-fabrication plants.” The proposed city would also include housing for workers, and it sounds remarkably similar to something Trump first proposed in March 2023, well before the 2024 presidential election.
Back in 2023,Trump called these projects “freedom cities,” and they were also to be built on federal land-nearly 40% of Arizona is federally owned. The main difference between the 2023 vision and the current plan is highly likely a greater focus on artificial intelligence. In 2023, Trump emphasized futuristic transportation, including flying cars.AI, as we understand it today, was still relatively new then, as ChatGPT launched in November 2022.
“Just as the United states led the automotive revolution in the last century, I want to ensure that America, not China, leads the revolution in air mobility. These breakthroughs can transform commerce, bring a giant infusion of wealth into rural America, and connect families in our country in new ways,” Trump said in a 2023 video.
Son reportedly scaled back his “new city” plan, according to the Journal, dropping the idea of a entirely new city.