SoftBank’s latest annual numbers make Masayoshi Son’s AI bet unusually clear. For the fiscal year ended in March, Vision Fund recorded a $46 billion gain, and about $45 billion came from OpenAI alone. Group net profit reached roughly 5 trillion yen, or about $32 billion.
SoftBank has said it will invest more than $60 billion in OpenAI for roughly 13% of the company, with more than half already deployed. The accounting upside depends on OpenAI’s $852 billion March valuation holding or rising. If the next private-market mark falls sharply, the same concentration would work in reverse.
S&P has already flagged the risk
After OpenAI’s March financing, S&P Global moved SoftBank’s outlook from stable to negative, citing concerns about asset liquidity, portfolio quality and financial capacity. SoftBank CFO Yoshimitsu Goto pointed to about 3.5 trillion yen in cash, enough for more than two years of bond redemptions, but the remaining OpenAI commitment and AI infrastructure plans still narrow the cushion.
This is familiar Son strategy: concentrated capital, long time horizon and one company that is supposed to reshape an industry. Alibaba made that approach legendary; WeWork showed the downside. OpenAI is larger than either as a single bet, so SoftBank’s next chapter now tracks OpenAI’s next valuation and revenue proof.
Sources: CocoLoop, Tech Startups, CNBC, Invezz; checked Vision Fund gain, OpenAI contribution, group profit, investment size, ownership target and S&P outlook.