When SoftBank Group Corp began pouring substantial funds into OpenAI last year, some executives questioned founder Masayoshi Son about the potential consequences if the ChatGPT developer were to fail—even if the probability was deemed extremely low. According to informed sources, Son, who has expressed belief that Sam Altman is leading the most significant technological transformation of this century, repeatedly dismissed such inquiries in a rather blunt manner. This led his deputies to eventually stop raising similar concerns.
However, recent breakthroughs by competitor Anthropic have sparked financial market skepticism toward the company co-founded by Altman, which is preparing for a potential public listing as early as this year. Insiders reveal that some SoftBank executives are growing anxious over the firm's continuously expanding investment in OpenAI—now exceeding $60 billion. They are also concerned about the leadership's near "celebrity-like" trust in Altman. These executives view the relationship between the two founders as potentially one-sided and high-risk.
The concerns regarding Son's relationship with Altman are based on interviews with approximately a dozen informed individuals, including SoftBank insiders. All interviewees requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly.
A core issue highlighted by these sources is Son's concentration of an excessive amount of SoftBank's capital into a single company—one that has recently faced operational, reputational, and legal challenges. SoftBank has sold off assets including its stake in Nvidia while not investing in rival artificial intelligence (AI) models. Although those holding this view within the company remain a minority, some executives fear a repeat of SoftBank's disastrous investment in WeWork, where Son over-supported another charismatic founder and ignored risk signals, ultimately leading to write-downs exceeding $14 billion. This time, the stakes are even higher.
SoftBank stated that it has "high trust" in OpenAI and its management. The company said in a statement: "SoftBank and OpenAI have established a strong strategic partnership based on a shared understanding of the direction of AI development and the need for global scale." OpenAI, in a separate statement, said the relationship between the two companies is "excellent" and that they are "among each other's closest partners."
SoftBank's stock fell by approximately 9% at one point in Tokyo trading on Wednesday, marking its largest single-day decline since late April.
If OpenAI achieves a valuation exceeding $1 trillion in an initial public offering (IPO), Son would have the opportunity to launch a "second act" in his career—following the legendary returns from his early bet on Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.
However, given increasing competition, the realization of such a blockbuster IPO remains uncertain. Anthropic's Claude model is challenging OpenAI's dominance, with its newly released Mythos model reportedly capable of identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities in multiple key software systems. Meanwhile, Google's Gemini model is rapidly catching up, demonstrating notable reasoning capabilities in scientific research fields.
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