SoftBank's $65 Billion OpenAI Bet Meets a Harder Credit Market

SoftBank Group shares came under heavy selling pressure as a global retreat from AI-linked equities forced investors to confront an uncomfortable question: at what price can the Japanese conglomerate keep funding its artificial intelligence ambitions? The stock's slide was part of a broader reassessment rather than a response to any fresh corporate announcement, with the group's nearly $65 billion stake in OpenAI — as tallied by Bloomberg — sitting at the center of the debate. The scale of that commitment explains why financing conditions now matter so much. Investors are no longer asking only whether AI will pay off in the long run; they want to know whether the capital required to get there can be raised on tolerable terms.