"I cried when I sold": SoftBank CEO comments on leaving Nvidia for the first time

Masayoshi Son, founder of Japan's SoftBank, said he wouldn't have sold Nvidia shares if he had unlimited funding for follow-on investments in artificial intelligence, including a big bet on OpenAI, Bloomberg writes.

"I didn't want to sell any shares. I just needed money to invest in OpenAI and other projects. I cried when I sold Nvidia shares," Son said at the FII Priority Asia forum, commenting for the first time on the surprise deal.

He also rejected talk of a bubble in the AI investment market. People who talk about a bubble around AI investments are "not smart enough," the SoftBank CEO said. If AI can generate 10% of global GDP in the long term, it will more than pay back even trillions of dollars of cumulative investment, he said, "Where is the bubble here?"

SoftBank sold its entire stake in Nvidia - 32.1 million shares - for $5.8 billion in October to fund new investments in AI. In particular, SoftBank invested $7.5 billion in OpenAI in April and plans to invest another $22.5 billion in the startup in December. The company is also going to acquire chip developer Ampere for $6.5 billion.

After it became known about the sale of Nvidia shares, SoftBank quotes collapsed by 10%. SoftBank withdrew from the capital of the world's most expensive company amid growing investor doubts as to whether the multi-billion dollar spending on AI by Meta Platforms, Google and other giants will bring a commensurate return.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor