SoftBank ‘in talks’ to invest up to $25bn in OpenAI
The Japanese investment group SoftBank is reportedly in talks to invest up to $25bn (£20bn) in OpenAI in a deal that would make it the biggest financial backer of the startup behind ChatGPT.
The lender is considering putting a sum of between $15bn and $25bn into the San Francisco-based company, according to the Financial Times.
SoftBank, whose other investments include TikTok parent ByteDance and British chip designer Arm, is already an investor in OpenAI and
recently backed a funding round
that valued the company at $157bn. Microsoft, currently OpenAI’s biggest shareholder, also joined that roundLast week OpenAI and SoftBank teamed up with Oracle to form Stargate, which Donald Trump called “the largest AI infrastructure project in history”. The partnership aims to build data centres for AI systems, with an initial spend of $100bn.
Citing multiple sources with knowledge of the talks,
SoftBank’s equity investment would cover the Japanese company’s commitment to Stargate. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and an influential figure in the Trump administration, has claimed Stargate’s backers “don’t actually have the money”.OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, replied on Musk’s social media platform, X, that the funding claims were wrong: “This is great for the country. I realize what is great for the country isn’t always what’s optimal for your companies, but in your new role I hope you’ll mostly put US first.”
OpenAI received a competitive jolt this month from
the emergence of Chinese rival DeepSeek
, after its latest chatbot went to the top of the Apple free app store and sent AI-linked stocks plunging on Monday.Although Altman initially said that he was impressed with DeepSeek and that it was “legitimately invigorating to have a new competitor”, the company later said it had evidence that Chinese startups were “constantly”
using OpenAI’s technology to develop competing products
.The OpenAI equity investment proposal, led by SoftBank chief executive, Masayoshi Son, has been vetted by senior executives and the board at OpenAI, the FT reported. However, it has not been finalised.
OpenAI declined to comment. SoftBank has been approached for comment.