Masayoshi Son and Greg Hayes have no documented business relationship. They’ve never run a company together, shared a board seat, or been part of the same deal. Their names appear together only because of one overlapping news moment — December 2016, when Son announced a $50 billion SoftBank investment pledge and Hayes was negotiating to keep Carrier jobs in Indiana.
So Are They Connected or Not?
Not directly. I found no public record showing Son and Hayes as business partners or showing them working together on a company or deal.
What did happen is this: in early December 2016, Son was announcing a massive investment plan with President-elect Trump, while Hayes was in the middle of a very public fight to keep American manufacturing jobs from moving to Mexico. Both stories ran in the same news cycle, about the same broad topic — American jobs and investment after the 2016 election.
December 2016: Two Separate Stories, One News Cycle
December 2016 is where the two names became linked in news coverage. On December 6, Masayoshi Son appeared at Trump Tower and announced that SoftBank planned to invest $50 billion in the United States and support 50,000 jobs. Around the same time, Greg Hayes, then CEO of United Technologies, was dealing with the Carrier jobs controversy in Indiana. The two stories appeared in the same December 2016 business and jobs story, but they were separate events involving different companies and different business decisions.
There’s a detail most headlines from that time left out: reporters later pointed out that the $50 billion wasn’t necessarily new money. Much of it was expected to come out of the $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund that had already been announced two months earlier, in October 2016. The Washington Post specifically flagged that it was unclear how much of the pledge was genuinely new investment versus money SoftBank had already committed.
At almost the same moment, Greg Hayes was dealing with something completely different. As CEO of United Technologies, he was under pressure from Trump to keep Carrier’s jobs in Indianapolis instead of shifting them to Mexico. A deal got done — Carrier stayed, at least partly — Hayes later said the company planned to spend $16 million on automation at the plant. The Washington Post reported that this same automation could end up cutting some of the very jobs the deal was supposed to protect.
Put simply: Son’s story was about investment money flowing in. Hayes’s story was about keeping jobs in Indiana while also investing in automation that could reduce some jobs. Same news cycle, same national conversation, completely different companies and completely different roles.
What We Actually Know vs. What Gets Assumed
| What’s documented | What it doesn’t mean |
|---|---|
| Son met Trump at Trump Tower in December 2016 | Son and Hayes ever met each other |
| Son announced a $50 billion U.S. investment pledge | Hayes had any role in that pledge |
| Hayes was CEO of United Technologies during the Carrier deal | Hayes ever worked at SoftBank |
| Carrier was part of United Technologies at the time | Son and Hayes negotiated anything together |
| Both stories ran in December 2016 | They knew each other or coordinated |
Where Greg Hayes’s Career Went After 2016
Hayes joined United Technologies (UTC) back in 1999, working his way up through finance and strategy roles before becoming CEO in 2014 and chairman in 2016.
Under his leadership, UTC went through a major restructuring: it sold Sikorsky in 2015, bought Rockwell Collins in 2018, and spun off both Carrier and Otis as independent companies in 2020. What remained — the aerospace business — merged with Raytheon that same year to form Raytheon Technologies, later renamed RTX.
Hayes ran RTX as chairman and CEO until Christopher Calio became President and CEO in May 2024, after which Hayes moved into the Executive Chairman role. Hayes then stepped down as Executive Chairman and left the RTX board on April 30, 2025, transitioning to a Special Advisor role through January 2, 2026, according to RTX’s leadership transition announcement.
What Greg Hayes Is Doing Now (2026)
Hayes isn’t running a company anymore — he’s moved into board work. As of 2026, he’s Lead Independent Director at Phillips 66, where he also chairs the nominating and governance committee and sits on several other board committees. He also holds a board seat at Becton, Dickinson and Company.
What Masayoshi Son Is Doing Now (2026)
As of 2026, Masayoshi Son remains Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group. SoftBank’s current leadership records also list Rene Haas as a Board Director, while Haas continues as CEO of Arm and also serves as CEO of SoftBank Group International. That is why Rene Haas can sometimes appear alongside Son in current SoftBank coverage, but Haas is a separate executive from Greg Hayes.
His focus these days is almost entirely on AI and advanced computing. In February 2026, SoftBank announced a further $30 billion investment in OpenAI through its Vision Fund 2, tied to what Son has been calling SoftBank’s “ASI” (artificial superintelligence) strategy.
One Common Mix-Up: Greg Hayes Isn’t Rene Haas
If you’re searching around this topic, it’s easy to confuse two similar-sounding names.
Greg Hayes and Rene Haas are not the same person. Hayes is the former United Technologies and RTX executive now serving on corporate boards, as described above. Rene Haas is the CEO of Arm — and he actually does sit on SoftBank’s board alongside Masayoshi Son. In April 2026, SoftBank gave Haas an additional title, CEO of SoftBank Group International, on top of his existing role running Arm.
So if your search was really about Son, SoftBank, and Arm, the executive you’re probably thinking of is Rene Haas, not Greg Hayes.
Bottom Line
There’s no business partnership here, past or present. What connects Masayoshi Son and Greg Hayes is one overlapping moment in December 2016, when Son was pitching investment and jobs to an incoming administration, and Hayes was negotiating to keep a factory’s jobs in the U.S. while also investing in automation at the plant.
A decade later, their paths have gone in completely different directions. Son is still steering SoftBank deeper into AI and chip design. Hayes has settled into board roles at Phillips 66 and Becton, Dickinson — no longer running a company, just advising the ones he sits on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Masayoshi Son and Greg Hayes business partners? No. There’s no record of a shared company, joint venture, or deal between them.
Did they ever work together? No. Their only real overlap is that both were prominent business news stories in December 2016, for unrelated reasons.
What happened between them in 2016? Nothing happened between them — their stories simply ran at the same time. Son announced SoftBank’s $50 billion U.S. investment pledge; Hayes was negotiating to keep Carrier jobs in Indiana.
Is Greg Hayes still CEO of RTX? No. Christopher Calio became president and CEO in May 2024. Hayes later served as Executive Chairman, then left the board in April 2025.
What is Greg Hayes doing now? He’s Lead Independent Director at Phillips 66 and sits on the board of Becton, Dickinson and Company.
What is Masayoshi Son doing now? He’s still Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group, focused heavily on AI investments including Arm and OpenAI.
Is Rene Haas the same person as Greg Hayes? No. Rene Haas runs Arm and sits on SoftBank’s board. Greg Hayes is unrelated — a former UTC/RTX executive now in board roles elsewhere.
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Hi, I’m Sophia Turner, a content writer who focuses on celebrity biographies, net worth information, and entertainment topics. I enjoy researching public figures and using reliable sources to make complex or unfamiliar information easy to understand.
My goal is to create clear and useful articles about celebrities, including their careers, achievements, backgrounds, and public work. I also follow entertainment news and trends to keep the content relevant and interesting for readers.