SoftBank is preparing to put $43B into OpenAI across Stargate and a direct equity round

Summary

SoftBank is preparing $43B in OpenAI bets across Stargate and direct equity

SoftBank's Masayoshi Son is moving to invest as much as $43 billion into OpenAI through two separate channels, cementing what would be the largest single investment by any venture investor into a startup. The Wall Street Journal reported that Son is in talks to invest between $15 billion and $25 billion as part of a $40 billion funding round that would value OpenAI at up to $300 billion—nearly double its October 2024 valuation. Separately, SoftBank has committed $18 billion toward Stargate, the infrastructure joint venture between OpenAI and other partners. Combined, this represents Son's largest capital deployment into the AI space and marks a reversal of sorts: Son had publicly expressed frustration at missing the initial AI wave, telling SoftBank investors last year he worried about getting old without capturing the opportunity.

The dual structure—infrastructure plus application layer—signals Son's conviction that both pieces matter. One reading is that Son is hedging across the stack rather than betting solely on compute or models. But the more straightforward reading is that he simply wants significant ownership across multiple tiers of OpenAI's value chain. The Street's coverage noted the two were photographed together in Tokyo on Monday, with Son holding a crystal ball—a detail neither the Journal nor Son himself seemed to address directly, though the metaphor was clear.

The numbers alone put this in rare territory. For context, Snowflake raised roughly $2.5 billion in its IPO, one of the largest software offerings ever. A single funding round of $40 billion dwarfs that by orders of magnitude. If the deal closes as described, Sam Altman will claim the title of greatest fundraiser of the era, accomplishing what only two people on earth could pull off: Altman and Son, who have a documented pattern of finding each other and moving fast on conviction bets.

The deal also carries symbolic weight within venture: Son originally targeted $30 billion for SoftBank's Vision Fund, circled it, crossed it out, and wrote $100 billion instead—asking for $100 billion and promising a $1 trillion return. That pattern of perpetual leverage continues here, though the capital is flowing toward a single company rather than a diversified fund.