SoftBank closes its $30B OpenAI pledge with bond money

SoftBank sent OpenAI the last $10 billion of its latest round on October 1 and paid for it with freshly issued bonds rather than with money from its $40 billion bridge loan. According to a SoftBank Group press release, the payment completes the $30 billion follow-on investment announced on February 27 and brings SoftBank's stake in OpenAI to approximately 13%.

At a glance

• SoftBank Group sent USD 10.0 billion, or JPY 1,579.6 billion at 157.96 yen per dollar, through SoftBank Vision Fund 2 to OpenAI Group PBC as the third and final tranche.
• Cumulative investment in OpenAI now stands at $64.6 billion for roughly 13% ownership, and the $40 billion bridge facility signed on March 27 has no borrowings or undrawn commitments left.
• The release does not give the size, coupon or maturity of the senior notes, so the cost of swapping short bridge debt for bond debt is not visible yet.

If you have not been following, SoftBank's OpenAI bet has come in rounds. According to SoftBank Group, it signed a definitive agreement on March 31, 2025 for follow-on investments of up to USD 40.0 billion, planning to syndicate USD 10.0 billion to co-investors, after putting USD 2.2 billion in through Vision Fund 2 since September 2024. SoftBank Group calls OpenAI its most important partner and announced the Stargate Project with it on January 21, 2025.

The third tranche of $10 billion completes a $30 billion follow-on and a $64.6 billion total

The payment went out on October 1, 2026, Japan time, through SoftBank Vision Fund 2 to OpenAI Group PBC. It was USD 10.0 billion, which SoftBank converts to JPY 1,579.6 billion at 157.96 yen per dollar, and it was the third and final tranche of the follow-on investments announced on February 27, 2026.

With it, SoftBank has paid the entire USD 30.0 billion of follow-on investments it announced in February. SoftBank Group puts its cumulative investment in OpenAI at USD 64.6 billion and its ownership interest at approximately 13%. The money for this last tranche came from the proceeds of foreign currency-denominated senior notes, announced on September 24, 2026.

SoftBank canceled the last $10 billion of its $40 billion bridge facility on September 30

The bridge facility agreement dated March 27, 2026 had a total size of USD 40.0 billion. Effective September 30, SoftBank canceled the USD 10.0 billion that had never been drawn. Together with the early repayment it announced on September 9, that leaves the facility with no borrowings outstanding and no undrawn commitments.

Bloomberg filled in the numbers behind that repayment, in a report carried by Yahoo Finance. SoftBank said on Sept. 9 it would repay the entire outstanding balance of $25.9 billion on Sept. 15. The loan was its largest-ever borrowing denominated solely in dollars, carried no collateral, was due to mature in March 2027 and had funded OpenAI investments and other costs.

The same report said SoftBank planned to meet investors in New York about a dollar junk-bond sale of $10 billion to $20 billion, possibly with a euro tranche, and had secured a $10 billion margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake. Bloomberg has described the notes sale as one of the biggest junk bond deals ever.

Why borrow through a bridge first?

Because a bridge loan is fast, temporary money. According to White & Case, such loans usually start with a maturity of one year or less and cover the gap until permanent financing, often a high yield bond, is in place. Their fees and rates are set to push the borrower toward refinancing rather than staying in the bridge.

Think of a homeowner's bridging loan, taken to buy a new house before the long-term mortgage is arranged and paid off the day that mortgage arrives. Yahoo Finance reported that in August 2026 CFO Yoshimitsu Goto said SoftBank intended to take out the $40 billion bridge early through permanent financing, including syndicated loans, domestic and international bonds, margin loans, derivatives-based financing and potentially asset sales.

In the same coverage, Bloomberg Intelligence's Kirk Boodry said issuing bonds "pushes the maturity out by several years." According to SoftBank Group, its own policy keeps LTV, adjusted net interest-bearing debt divided by the equity value of its holdings, below 25% in normal times, with a 35% ceiling even in emergencies, plus cash to cover bond redemptions for at least two years.

How did SoftBank fund the earlier OpenAI payments?

Largely by selling other holdings, according to CNBC. SoftBank sold its entire Nvidia stake, 32.1 million shares in October 2025, for $5.83 billion and part of its T-Mobile stake for $9.17 billion. Together with a margin loan on Arm, these were sources of cash for a $22.5 billion OpenAI investment, CNBC reported, citing a source.

CNBC also quoted New Street Research's Rolf Bulk, who said SoftBank needed at least $30.5 billion of capital in October to December 2025, including $22.5 billion for OpenAI and $6.5 billion for Ampere. In his words, that was more in a single quarter than SoftBank had invested in aggregate over the two prior years combined.

The release leaves the price of all this out. It gives neither the size, coupon or maturity of the senior notes nor SoftBank's LTV after the issue, so you cannot yet tell how the bond swap moved its debt against the 25% target. In our view, canceling the unused $10 billion rather than keeping it on standby is the notable design choice: it leaves SoftBank with no bridge cushion, and it appears to treat the bond market as its backup instead.

What the new notes will cost

The next useful numbers are the ones this release skips: the interest rate SoftBank pays on the foreign currency-denominated notes, when they come due, and where LTV lands now that the $30 billion round is paid in full. No date has been given for that disclosure. Also open is the $10 billion margin loan against the OpenAI stake, which Bloomberg reported but this release does not mention.