Masayoshi Son again pinned the "life-death situation": SoftBank plans to borrow a record $40 billion, All IN OpenAI to fight AI bubble concerns.

According to sources familiar with the matter, SoftBank Group is reportedly in talks for a loan of up to $40 billion, primarily to provide funding for its investment in the American tech giant OpenAI. This will be the largest dollar-denominated financing in SoftBank's history. The sources stated that the transitional loan would have a term of approximately 12 months and would be led by four banks, including JPMorgan Chase. The negotiations are currently ongoing and specific terms may be subject to change. Both JPMorgan Chase and SoftBank declined to comment. The potential size of this loan highlights SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son's aggressive stance in trying to position SoftBank as a core player in the global artificial intelligence (AI) boom. SoftBank has previously invested over $30 billion in OpenAI, and this additional $30 billion investment is a key part of Son's ambitious strategy - a move that is reminiscent of his early investments in ByteDance and Alibaba, but on an unprecedented scale. As of the end of December last year, SoftBank held approximately 11% of OpenAI's shares. In order to further increase its stake in OpenAI, SoftBank has been selling off assets such as NVIDIA Corporation, and OpenAI has now become one of SoftBank's largest holdings, second only to its approximately 90% stake in chip design company Arm. This focus on OpenAI has been prioritized over investments in other areas, linking SoftBank's stock performance closely to ChatGPT and its competition with Alphabet's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude. However, market observers are deeply concerned about the scale of SoftBank's gamble - as there have yet to be widespread applications of AI services, the risk of a bubble continues to grow. This week, Standard & Poor's has downgraded SoftBank's credit outlook, warning that its investment in OpenAI could jeopardize its liquidity and asset quality. Analyst Sharon Chen stated, "SoftBank's $30 billion investment in OpenAI further weighs on its credit position. SoftBank's cushion has become very limited under the 35% adjusted loan-to-value (LTV) threshold set by Standard & Poor's. Since 2025, SoftBank has relied on debt issuance and asset sales to fund over $70 billion in AI investments, leading to high debt levels and a decline in the quality of its investment portfolio. The macroeconomic uncertainties and concerns about the AI bubble will impact SoftBank's loan-to-value ratio and the timing of OpenAI's IPO - the latter being a key positive factor." "SoftBank needs to raise up to $40 billion this year, with its funding channels in the Japanese yen market open and able to raise over $10 billion by selling T-Mobile and listing tech stocks (excluding Arm). However, due to supply risks and risk aversion, SoftBank's bonds are expected to continue fluctuating, with widening spreads pressure," Chen added. In addition to investing in OpenAI, SoftBank is also making smaller investments in other areas: SoftBank and OpenAI jointly invested $1 billion in infrastructure company SB Energy, which is collaborating with tech companies to build data centers in the United States; SoftBank also announced a cash acquisition of around $3 billion of private equity firm DigitalBridge; last year, SoftBank acquired US chip design company Ampere Computing for $6.5 billion and proposed a $5.4 billion acquisition of ABB Group's Siasun Robot & Automation business unit. These series of investments underscore the tech investment giant's urgent need to take on significant debt. It is reported that SoftBank has increased the size of margin loans backed by its mobile communication subsidiary and chip subsidiary Arm.