SoftBank AI Sell-off
SoftBank Shares Tumble 10% Amid Tech Sell-off, Clouding OpenAI IPO Expectations
SoftBank Group shares fell about 10% in Tokyo after a broader global sell-off and overnight U.S. tech profit-taking, with the decline deepening earlier in the session. The pullback followed a strong run tied to investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence and expectations that SoftBank’s key investment, OpenAI, could pursue an IPO. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son argued that the AI revolution could dwarf the dot-com era, but analysts warned markets may be over-focused on short-term momentum rather than longer-term assumptions. Coverage also highlighted concern that OpenAI’s competitors are pushing ahead with their own IPO plans, potentially changing the competitive and financing landscape for companies building large-scale AI infrastructure. Separately, SoftBank received a boost earlier from plans for a major data center project in France, underscoring how its stock swings reflect both AI growth hopes and the risks of highly concentrated bets.
Key Points
SoftBank’s shares closed down 10.4% at 7,449 yen (about $46.53) after earlier dropping as much as 11% during the session; the paper also noted the stock had more than doubled over the prior two months on AI enthusiasm and OpenAI-IPO hopes.
Masayoshi Son told CNBC that the AI revolution could be “50 times larger than the dot-com revolution,” adding: “electronics and motorization crashed in 1929, but went up for many, many years, for the next 100 years after that… so there may be some correction, but that will be the best investment opportunity to me.”
A Deutsche Bank investor note quoted in the CNBC report said markets appear “to become fixated on short-term momentum, and less interested, or unable, to map out the long-term trajectory with detailed assumptions,” helping explain why the selloff followed a rapid run-up.
Coverage highlighted concrete competitor IPO mechanics: SpaceX—after acquiring OpenAI competitor xAI in February—reportedly plans to sell about $75 billion in stock in its upcoming IPO targeting a June 12 listing, while Anthropic has reportedly filed confidentially for an IPO and could go public as early as this fall.
The stock move also reflected how concentrated SoftBank’s bets are: OpenAI was described as accounting for about a quarter of SoftBank’s roughly $300 billion equity portfolio as of March, second only to its stake in Arm Holdings.
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