SoftBank Shares Plunge After Selling $5.8 Billion Nvidia Stake

Tokyo — Shares of SoftBank Group fell as much as 10% on Wednesday after the company revealed it had sold its entire stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia for $5.83 billion. The proceeds are expected to fund SoftBank’s planned $22.5 billion investment in ChatGPT developer OpenAI, according to a source familiar with the matter.

SoftBank shares were last trading over 6% lower, as the market reacted to the unexpected sale. The move came alongside the company’s decision to trim its stake in T-Mobile, raising an additional $9.17 billion.

In its latest earnings report, SoftBank confirmed the sale of 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October. “We want to provide a lot of investment opportunities for investors while maintaining financial strength,” said Yoshimitsu Goto, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, during an investor presentation.

Analysts said the sale should not be seen as a retreat from the semiconductor sector. “This is a bullish signal, not a bearish one,” said Dan Ives, Global Head of Technology Research at Wedbush Securities. “SoftBank is doubling down on the generative AI theme.”

SoftBank has a long history with Nvidia. Its Vision Fund was one of Nvidia’s early major investors, building a $4 billion stake in 2017 before fully divesting in 2019. Despite the latest sale, the two remain connected through SoftBank’s majority ownership in British chip designer Arm Holdings, which supplies key technology for mobile and AI processors.

Rolf Bulk, Equity Research Analyst at New Street Research, noted that SoftBank continues to balance software and hardware investments. “While OpenAI stands as the centerpiece of its generative AI portfolio, Arm ensures its continued presence in hardware innovation,” he said.

The announcement also weighed on other tech stocks across Asia. Semiconductor equipment makers Advantest and Tokyo Electron both declined more than 2%, while Taiwan’s TSMC slipped 0.34% and South Korea’s SK Hynix dropped 1.6%.

SoftBank’s latest divestment underscores its ongoing strategy to strengthen liquidity for AI and robotics ventures, positioning itself at the forefront of the next wave of technological transformation.