SoftBank races to fulfill 22.5 billion funding pledge to OpenAI by year-end

SoftBank races to fulfill $22.5 billion funding pledge to OpenAI by year-end SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son attends an event to pitch AI for businesses in Tokyo in February. NEW YORK/TOKYO/SAN FRANCISCO - 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.