$40 billion loan: SoftBank seeks record financing to fund OpenAI investment — Here’s what we know
Masayoshi Son-led SoftBank Group is in talks with multiple lenders for a record $40 billion loan aimed largely at financing its investment in artificial intelligence leader OpenAI, according to a Bloomberg report citing sources.
Officials stated that the 12-month privileged bridge loan will be SoftBank’s largest dollar borrowing ever, adding that four banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Company, will undertake this loan.
Son’s aggressive moves in the field of artificial intelligence
The report also noted that the potential size of the loan underscores Son’s ongoing “aggressive bid” to position SoftBank as the core of the emerging AI field. The company aims to invest $30 billion in OpenAI, on top of the $30 billion already secured.
By December 2025, the investment holding company held an 11% stake in the Sam Altman-led ChatGPT maker and even sold shares of Jensen Huang’s blockbuster chip company Nvidia Corporation to fund the infusion.
While OpenAI currently represents SoftBank’s largest holding outside Arm Holdings (90% stake), its funding of other businesses has been slowing. Its shares are now tied to ChatGPT’s relative performance against Google’s (Alphabet) Gemini and Anthropic PBC’s Claude, which are steadily gaining market share.
All these investments underline that technology investors need to borrow large amounts. The company’s mobile unit SoftBank Corp. and has already increased the amount of margin loans secured by its chip unit Arm.
Concerns about the artificial intelligence bubble continue
Risk bets are not unusual for Son, whose early investments in ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) and Alibaba have paid off, the report said. But he added that the price was not that high.
But observers are worried about the potential AI bubble bursting, and S&P this week lowered SoftBank’s credit outlook, citing the danger that investments in OpenAI could harm the Japanese company’s liquidity and the credit quality of its assets.
Bloomberg analyst Sharon Chen said SoftBank’s $30 billion investment in OpenAI further negatively impacted its credit profile as the company faces limited headroom under S&P’s 35% adjusted LTV threshold.
“It has relied on debt and asset sales to finance more than $70 billion of AI investment since 2025, resulting in a large debt load and weaker portfolio quality. An uncertain macro environment and concerns around an AI bubble pose risks to SoftBank’s LTV and the timing of the OpenAI listing – a significant upside catalyst,” he said.
Chen added: “SoftBank needs to raise as much as $40 billion this year. It benefits from strong access to the yen market and could raise more than $10 billion from the sale of publicly traded technology stocks, excluding T-Mobile and Arm. Its bonds are likely to remain volatile, with supply risk and spread-widening pressure from potential risk aversion.”
(With input from Bloomberg)
