Softbank has dumped its entire $5.83 billion stake in AI chip supplier Nvidia as it pours more resources into its “all-in” bet on Sam Altman’s OpenAI.
The Japanese investment giant, led by CEO Masayoshi Son, sold all of its 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October, according to an earnings statement released Tuesday. Softbank also sold part of its $9.17 billion stake in telecom giant T-Mobile.
When asked about the Nvidia sale, Softbank’s chief financial officer Yoshimitsu Goto pointed to the massive size of the firm’s planned investment in OpenAI.
“We want to provide a lot of investment opportunities for investors, while we can still maintain financial strength,” Goto said during an investor presentation, according to CNBC.
“So through those options and tools we make sure that we are ready for funding in a very safe manner,” Goto added.
The Nvidia and T-Mobile selloffs are “sources of cash that will be used to fund the $22.5 billion investment in OpenAI,” a person familiar with the matter told CNBC. The proceeds will also be used on other Softbank bets.
Softbank’s decision to sell the stake came during an ongoing debate on Wall Street about whether AI firms like Nvidia are an overvalued “bubble” as huge sums of money flow into the sector without immediate returns.
“Son is a savvy investor, so selling the entire stake must mean that he is no longer optimistic about the share price,” Wong Kok Hoi, CEO of APS Asset Management in Singapore, told Reuters. “Big tech companies may continue to invest heavily in GPU chips, but not at this year’s level for many years.”
Nvidia shares were down more than 3% in early trading Tuesday.
Softbank did not immediately return a request for comment. Nvidia declined to comment.
In June, Son declared that he was “all in on OpenAI” and said he wanted Softbank to “become the organizer of the industry in the artificial super intelligence era” – or AI that’s smarter than humans.
Softbank’s second-quarter profit swelled to 2.5 trillion yen, $16.6 billion, driven by OpenAI’s surging valuation.
The investment giant is also heavily involved in President Trump’s $500 billion “Stargate” AI infrastructure project, which calls for a major buildup of AI data centers needed to develop cutting-edge tech.
Softbank has been a serial investor in Nvidia over the years. The company previously built a $4 billion stake in the chip supplier as of 2017, only to sell the entire stake in 2019.
With Post wires
