The $41 Billion Golden Ticket: SoftBank Seals Historic OpenAI Stake

SoftBank has completed an additional $22.5B investment in OpenAI, bringing its total to approximately $41B and securing an 11% stake, behind Microsoft (27%) and the OpenAI Foundation (26%), amid OpenAI’s shift to a for‑profit structure and a ~$500B valuation. To fund the move, SoftBank reportedly sold its NVIDIA and T‑Mobile US holdings and announced a $4B acquisition of DigitalBridge, aligning with plans around hyperscale data centers (e.g., OpenAI/Oracle’s “Stargate”). The article frames this as a strategic pivot by Masayoshi Son to vertically integrate across energy, data centers, and AI models, positioning a Microsoft‑SoftBank‑OpenAI “AI iron triangle” in competition with Google and Meta.