SoftBank secures $10 billion margin loan backed by OpenAI stake

SoftBank Group has raised $10 billion against its OpenAI stake, using the unusual structure of a large loan backed by shares in an unlisted company to help finance further AI investments, including its remaining planned commitment to OpenAI by October. The borrowing, from lenders including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Apollo, Mizuho Securities and Sumitomo Mitsui, includes protections that can require SoftBank to add funds if OpenAI's valuation falls below a specified threshold, tying the group's balance sheet more closely to the private AI company's value. The financing extends Masayoshi Son's strategy of using debt to deepen SoftBank's exposure to the AI buildout across models, data centers, semiconductors, cloud infrastructure and robotics. SoftBank has said it plans to invest a total of $30 billion in OpenAI this year, with its stake expected to reach about 13% after the additional investment is completed. The deal lands as market attention shifts from chip demand to how the industry's enormous capital needs will be funded. Nvidia's GPUs and high-bandwidth memory remain in strong demand, but investors are increasingly focused on rising leverage, project-finance risk and the possibility that falling AI model prices could delay returns on tens of billions of dollars in data center spending. Concerns around funding costs have also drawn attention to Oracle, CoreWeave and the Stargate Project, reinforcing the view that finance, not technology alone, may determine the pace of the AI investment cycle.