SoftBank books OpenAI paper gains while selling Nvidia stake to actually fund the investment
Nov 11, 2025
Key Points
- SoftBank books $8 billion in unrealized gains on OpenAI shares it has not yet fully paid for, then sells its entire $5.83 billion Nvidia stake to fund the capital commitment.
- CEO Masayoshi Son has a pattern of poor Nvidia timing: he sold a 5% stake in January 2019 worth $3.6 billion that would now exceed $200 billion.
- The accounting structure mirrors venture firm practice but raises questions about rigor: SoftBank is simultaneously booking gains and liquidating a separate asset to fund an investment at a valuation it just marked up.
Summary
SoftBank booked $8 billion in paper gains on OpenAI shares it has not yet fully paid for, then sold its entire Nvidia stake for $5.83 billion to fund the investment tranche it committed to. The structure is circular and raises questions about accounting rigor, though it may not be illegal.
SoftBank designated Vision Fund Two to underwrite a second investment in OpenAI at a $500 billion valuation. The fund created a forward derivative contract on those shares worth $8 billion in gains, profit on an investment it hasn't actually paid for yet. SoftBank then liquidated 32 million Nvidia shares in October to raise cash for the capital call.
Masayoshi Son has a documented pattern of poor Nvidia timing. He held a 5% stake worth roughly $3.6 billion when he sold it in January 2019. That stake would now be worth over $200 billion. He is now exiting again before what could be another major run. It is unclear when SoftBank bought back into Nvidia or at what basis, making the magnitude of this miss harder to quantify, but the pattern is real.
Venture firms routinely mark unrealized gains on portfolio companies before full capital is deployed, then lead follow-on rounds. The difference here is scale and mechanics. Venture firms face LP scrutiny for back-to-back round leading, and the practice gains credibility only when secondary buyers validate the valuation. SoftBank is doing something similar, but the fact that it is simultaneously booking gains and liquidating a separate asset to fund the commitment adds a layer of financial engineering that reads nontraditional, even if it doesn't cross legal lines.
SoftBank is selling exposure to Nvidia's primary growth driver (OpenAI, the largest AI training customer) to fund shares in that same customer at a valuation SoftBank itself just marked up. Whether this is sophisticated capital allocation or circular accounting depends partly on whether other institutional buyers validate the $500 billion OpenAI number in the near term.