SoftBank takes out a record $40 billion loan for a stake in OpenAI

Forty billion dollars. That is exactly how much SoftBank Group is prepared to borrow to acquire a stake in OpenAI — and this is not a typo, but the largest dollar-denominated loan in the history of the Japanese technology conglomerate. Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the negotiations, revealed this information. According to insiders, almost the entire sum will be directed towards financing SoftBank's stake in the company that created ChatGPT.

To assess the scale of what is happening, it is enough to recall the context. SoftBank, under the leadership of Masayoshi Son, has been building a strategy around artificial intelligence for more than a year. The first Vision Fund with a volume of approximately $100 billion, launched in 2017, was supposed to become the largest technology investment fund in history — and it did, but the results fell far short of triumphant.

Losses on WeWork, failures of a number of portfolio companies and market volatility led many analysts to doubt Son's investment acumen. The second Vision Fund wound down active investing altogether. However, the generative AI boom that began with the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 literally breathed new life into SoftBank's ambitions — and now Son is making a bet that could determine the future of his empire.

A $40 billion loan is a figure that is staggering even by the standards of the world's largest deals. For comparison: this is comparable to the annual GDP of a small European country and exceeds the market capitalization of most companies in the S&P 500 index. The fact that the loan is denominated exclusively in dollars speaks volumes: SoftBank clearly expects dollar-denominated returns from the investment and wants to minimize currency risks.

Details of the credit agreement — the composition of the banking syndicate, interest rates, terms and covenants — have not yet been disclosed, but the mere willingness of creditors to consider such a volume testifies to the seriousness of intentions and a certain level of trust in SoftBank's collateral base.

Special attention is deserved by the object of investment. Over the past few years, OpenAI has gone from a non-profit research laboratory to one of the most expensive private companies in the world. By latest estimates, its valuation approaches $300 billion, and some funding rounds have taken place at even more aggressive multiples. The company is in the process of transforming its corporate structure — transitioning from a "limited profit" model to a more traditional commercial form, which opens the door for large institutional investors. It is in this window of opportunity that SoftBank is acting.

However, the risks of this deal are as grandiose as its scale. OpenAI, for all its technological power, remains a company with colossal expenses on computational resources and research. Competition in the field of large language models is intensifying with each quarter: Google with Gemini, Anthropic with Claude, Meta with open Llama models, Chinese players like DeepSeek — they all claim a share of the market, which is still being formed. The question of monetizing generative AI is far from resolved, and even OpenAI's leadership does not guarantee that the company will be able to generate enough profit to justify a valuation in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

For SoftBank, a bet on OpenAI is not just a financial investment, but an existential choice. Masayoshi Son has repeatedly stated that he believes in the advent of the era of "superintelligence" and wants his company to stand at the center of this transformation. Attracting borrowed funds of such magnitude means that SoftBank is literally mortgaging its financial future for this vision. If OpenAI lives up to expectations and becomes a platform company on the level of Google or Microsoft, Son will enter history as the most far-sighted investor of his generation. If not — the consequences for SoftBank and its creditors will be catastrophic.

This deal sets a new standard for the entire industry. When one of the world's largest technology investors is willing to borrow $40 billion for a stake in an AI company, it sends a signal to the market: the race for leadership in artificial intelligence is entering a phase where sums that seemed unthinkable just recently are at stake. The question is only whether this bet will prove to be brilliant — or will it become the most expensive lesson in the history of corporate finance.