SoftBank Races to Fulfill $22.5-B Commitment to OpenAI

SoftBank Group is racing to close a $22.5 billion funding commitment to OpenAI by year’s end through an array of cash-raising measures, including the sale of some investments, and could tap undrawn margin loans backed by its valuable stake in chipmaker Arm Holdings, sources told Echo Wang, Miho Uranaka, and Krystal Hu of Reuters.

To raise the funds, Son has already sold SoftBank’s entire $5.8 billion stake in AI chip leader Nvidia, offloaded $4.8 billion of its stake in T-Mobile US, and slashed staff. (Photo: MIKI Yoshihito Flickr) 

The “all-in” bet on OpenAI is among the largest yet by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, as the Japanese billionaire seeks to strengthen his firm’s position in the race for artificial intelligence (AI).

To raise the funds, Son has already sold SoftBank’s entire $5.8 billion stake in AI chip leader Nvidia, offloaded $4.8 billion of its stake in T-Mobile US, and slashed staff.

Son has slowed most other dealmaking at SoftBank’s Vision Fund to a crawl, and any transaction above $50 million now requires his explicit approval, two sources told Reuters.

SoftBank is also working to take public its payments app operator, PayPay.

The initial public offering, originally expected this month, was pushed back due to the 43-day U.S. government shutdown, which ended in November.

PayPay’s market debut, expected to raise more than $20 billion, is now anticipated in the first quarter of next year, according to one direct source and another person familiar with the matter.

The Japanese conglomerate is also seeking to cash out part of its holdings in Didi Global, the operator of China’s dominant ride-hailing platform, which is preparing to list its shares in Hong Kong after a regulatory crackdown forced it to delist from U.S. markets in 2021.