5,000 jobs 'announced' by Trump are already part of 50,000 in SoftBank deal

President-elect Donald Trump's announcement of 5,000 new jobs at the telecoms company Sprint on Wednesday (28 December) are part of 50,000 jobs he and a Japanese business mogul announced last month.

The original jobs announcement was made by Masayoshi Son, chief executive of Japan's SoftBank – which owns a controlling stake in Sprint – after he met with Trump on 6 December.

At the time Son said that SoftBank would invest $50billion in the United States, creating roughly 50,000 jobs.

A Sprint spokesperson confirmed to ABC News and Politico that the 5,000 jobs announced by Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Wednesday (28 December) "are part of the 50,000 jobs that Masa Son announced a few weeks ago."

Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer said early on Wednesday that Trump would have "a big economic announcement this afternoon." Trump later appeared before reporters at his estate where he has spent the Christmas holiday.

"I was just called by the head people at Sprint, and they're going to be bringing 5,000 jobs back to the United States. They're taking them from other countries," he said. "They're bringing them back to the United States."

Trump added that "Masa and some other people were very much involved in that." A Sprint Corp-owned US company OneWeb also intends to add 3,000 jobs, Trump said.

Since meeting Trump in early December, Masayoshi Son has become $2billion richer after his company gained 6.1% on the stock exchange. His total wealth is now $19.7billion, making him Japan's richest person.

Sprint "anticipates these jobs will support a variety of functions across the organization including its customer care and sales teams," the company said in a statement. It expects to add the jobs by the end of 2017. "Sprint will begin discussions immediately with its business partners, states and cities to determine the right locations in the US to create these jobs."