SoftBank secures a 10B USD loan backed by its OpenAI stake

SoftBank has secured a 10B USD loan backed by its equity stake in OpenAI, according to reports citing a company filing. The loan is secured by OpenAI preferred shares held through SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and is expected to be drawn later this month.

The lending group includes Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Mizuho Securities, Apollo Global Funding and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking. SoftBank is acting as guarantor, and the proceeds are described as general corporate funding for SoftBank Group and Vision Fund 2. The structure can require more collateral or early repayment if the value of the pledged OpenAI shares falls.

The financing matters because SoftBank’s AI strategy is now tightly coupled to OpenAI. The company has already arranged a much larger bridge facility to support its OpenAI investment, and Bloomberg-backed reporting has said SoftBank’s total OpenAI exposure could approach 65B USD.

For the AI market, this is another sign that frontier model companies are becoming financial infrastructure, not just software vendors. OpenAI shares are being used to raise debt for a wider investment campaign, while SoftBank is taking more balance-sheet risk to stay central to the next wave of AI infrastructure.