SoftBank junk bond sale raises stakes for CEO Son's all-in AI bet

SoftBank junk bond sale raises stakes for CEO Son's all-in AI bet SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son's bets have a mixed track record -- his investment in Chinese tech giant Alibaba was a major success, but he also directed $16 billion to Adam Neumann's WeWork, which ultimately went bankrupt. SoftBank's promise to pay its highest-ever yields in a record $11 billion junk-bond offering highlights the pressure on CEO Masayoshi Son to secure returns on his all-in bet on artificial intelligence amid concerns about possible overheating in the market. The SoftBank debt issuance last month added to a sharp surge in corporate borrowing this year, including major bond sales from Amazon, Alphabet and Tencent. The scale of Son's investments, which include backing totaling $64.6 billion for ChatGPT maker OpenAI, in particular, has made the technology-and-investing conglomerate a bellwether for AI sentiment. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever.