NEW YORK/TOKYO/SAN FRANCISCO ¨C SoftBank Group is racing to close a $22.5 billion funding commitment to OpenAI by year-end through an array of cash-raising plans, including a sale of some investments, and could tap its undrawn margin loans borrowed against its valuable ownership in chip firm Arm Holdings, sources said.
The ¡°all-in¡± bet on OpenAI is among the biggest yet by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, as the Japanese billionaire seeks to improve his firm¡¯s position in the race for artificial intelligence. To come ?up with the money, Son has already sold SoftBank¡¯s entire $5.8 billion stake in AI chip leader Nvidia, offloaded $4.8 billion of its T-Mobile U.S. stake and slashed staff.
Son has slowed ?most other ?dealmaking at SoftBank¡¯s Vision Fund to a crawl, and any deal above $50 million now requires his explicit approval, two of the sources said. Son¡¯s firm is working to take public its payments app operator, PayPay.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.