SoftBank Sells Entire $5.8B Nvidia Stake And Part Of T-Mobile Holdings To Back $22.5B OpenAI Investment
SoftBank has sold its entire $5.83 billion stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to focus on its OpenAI investment.
The Japanese investment firm announced on Nov. 11, 2025, that it sold 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October, along with a portion of its T-Mobile stake, which sold for $9.17 billion, CNBC reports. Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto said the sales were part of the company’s “asset monetization” strategy.
“We want to provide a lot of investment opportunities for investors, while we can still maintain financial strength,” Goto said during an investor presentation, per CNBC. The CFO also announced a four-for-one stock split.
“So through those options and tools, we make sure that we are ready for funding in a very safe manner,” he added.
A source reportedly told CNBC that SoftBank’s share sales of Nvidia and T-Mobile, along with a margin loan on its Arm holdings, are “sources of cash” for its $22.5 billion investment in OpenAI and for other projects, such as the acquisition of ABB’s robotics unit.
The sale of shares, combined with a $19 billion gain from its Vision Fund, helped SoftBank double its profit in the fiscal second quarter. The Vision Fund has been aggressively expanding and investing across the AI ecosystem — from chips to large language models and robotics.
“The reason we were able to have this result is because of September last year, that was the first time we invested in OpenAI,” said Goto, per CNBC.
SoftBank’s $22.5 billion investment in the ChatGPT maker will boost its stake from 4% to 11%, with the potential for further increases depending on the company’s performance and future valuations.
However, the firm generally avoids exceeding a 40% stake to maintain a non-controlling position, the source told CNBC.
“Our share price recently has been going up and down dynamically … we want to provide as many invest opportunities as possible,” said Goto on Tuesday. He also noted that the company’s stock split is part of that strategy to provide such opportunities for stockholders.
Despite its recent sale of stock, which pushed Nvidia shares down 2% in value, SoftBank remains involved in several AI ventures that rely on Nvidia technology, including the $500 billion U.S. Stargate data center project.
“This should not be seen, in our view, as a cautious or negative stance on Nvidia, but rather in the context of SoftBank needing at least $30.5bn of capital for investments in the Oct-Dec quarter, including $22.5bn for OpenAI and $6.5bn for Ampere,” New Street Research analyst Rolf Bulk told CNBC.
That amounts to “more in a single quarter than it has invested in aggregate over the two prior years combined,” Bulk added.
