Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., speaks during the company's annual general meeting in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, June 27, 2025.
SoftBank is "all in" on OpenAI, CEO Masayoshi Son said on Friday, as the Japanese tech giant looks to realize its vision of "artificial superintelligence."
This year, the Japanese multinational conglomerate has been increasing its investments in OpenAI and participating in joint ventures such as the $500 billion Stargate project.
According to Son, SoftBank is now "all in" on the artificial intelligence company, with total planned investments in the company reaching about 4.8 trillion Japanese yen ($33.2 billion), despite it being unlisted and unprofitable.
"I think that OpenAI will be listed eventually and, in my belief, will become the most valuable company in the world," Son said. He added, however, that it "takes bravery to invest" in such a company.
As it turns out, Son has long held that conviction. During the shareholders' meeting, he revealed that before 2019, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had asked him if SoftBank would invest $10 billion into the company.
"I said, yes, I would ... I was serious because I had financial resources thanks to Vision Fund's performance. But obviously, Sam talked to other potential investors, and eventually, they picked Microsoft," he said.
Microsoft ultimately inked the deal, which made it the exclusive provider of computing power for OpenAI's research, products, and programming interfaces for developers. However, Microsoft lost its status as OpenAI's exclusive cloud provider at the start of this year.
And that relationship now appears to be on rocky footing. According to recent reports, Microsoft hasn't approved an OpenAI restructuring plan that would turn it into a more conventional for-profit company.
Touching upon the reports, Son suggested that Altman should have chosen SoftBank, not Microsoft, as its initial partner, though he noted that SoftBank was smaller at the time and that Microsoft had its global supply chains, technical talents and brand value to offer.
... continue reading