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Meet Masayoshi Son, The Billionaire Softbank Founder Helping Fund The Stargate Ai Joint Venture
Masayoshi Son is the founder and CEO of Japanese holding company SoftBank.
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- SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has been a champion of AI for years.
- The Japanese conglomerate has invested millions in some of Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies.
- Son joined OpenAI and Oracle to announce a $500 billion joint investment in US AI projects.
Masayoshi Son is the CEO and founder of tech and telecommunications giant SoftBank, and is worth an estimated $16.2 billion.
Through SoftBank and the $100 billion Vision Fund, Son has invested millions in some of Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies, including Uber, Slack, Amazon, Tesla, and Netflix. Softbank was the biggest investor in WeWork, losing more than $4.7 billion after the coworking company's failed IPO.
In November 2024, SoftBank reported quarterly profit of 1.18 trillion yen, or $7.7 billion at the time. It was the firm's biggest profit in two years; revenue was boosted by Son's big bets on AI.
Over the years, Son has been a big proponent of the tech, and has invested billions, including in OpenAI.
Now, Son's company is partnering with other tech leaders to fund a $500 billion investment in US AI. He joined President Donald Trump, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Oracle CTO Larry Ellison on January 21 to announce Stargate, a project that seeks to build US AI infrastructure and create jobs.
Here's a look at Son's life, career, investments, and real-estate portfolio.
Son was born in 1957 to Korean immigrants on the Japanese island of Kyushu.Son is a Japan native with Korean heritage.
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The 67-year-old CEO was one of four brothers, and his father worked at restaurants, farms, and fisheries.
In 1972, when he was 16, Son met one of his business idols.Masayoshi Son moved to San Francisco after getting advice from one of his idols.
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He met McDonald's Japan founder Den Fujita, who encouraged him to go study in the United States. Son took his advice and moved to San Francisco the next year to continue high school, Bloomberg reported.
Son went on to study computer science and economics at the University of California at Berkeley.The UC Berkeley campus.
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Before he was 21 years old, Son sold his first company, a multilingual translator bought by Sharp for about $1 million, according to Bloomberg.
In the 1980s, Son founded SoftBank, a company that today pours billions of dollars of capital into tech startups, including through its Vision Fund.Son's SoftBank has invested in some major tech players over the years.
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Through its main investment vehicle, the Vision Fund, SoftBank has invested in major tech companies like Uber, WeWork, DoorDash, and Chinese e-commerce retailer Alibaba.
Son's investment strategies are considered unconventional in Silicon Valley.Son is known as a gambler whose bets tend to pay off.
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The size of Son's $100 billion Vision Fund and its investment strategies have shocked Silicon Valley investors, per Bloomberg.
In early 2019, Fast Company called Son "the most powerful person in Silicon Valley" for his ambitious vision — and financial means — to transform industries from real estate to food to transportation through his investments in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Son's talks with Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman helped raise $100 billion for the Vision Fund.Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman and Son shake hands after signing a solar power project agreement in New York in March 2018.
Bandar Algaloud / Saudi Kingdom Council / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, met with Son in 2018, and their talks led to the formation of a solar energy project that seeks to develop more energy storage systems and create more jobs in Saudi Arabia, according to an announcement.
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is the SoftBank Vision Fund's largest backer, having contributed $45 billion of the fund's $100 billion bankroll, Bloomberg reported.
The SoftBank CEO is known for paying his executives handsomely — and he's far from the highest-paid person at the company.Son pays his executives well.
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Six of SoftBanks' top executives made $83 million combined (9.1 billion yen) in compensation in 2018, while Son's salary rose to about $2.1 million (229 million yen), according to Bloomberg.
"The range of executive salaries in Japan has gone up, but compensation in the billions of yen is still unheard of beyond a handful of global companies," Noriko Watanabe, a partner at Heidrick & Struggles, an executive search company, told Bloomberg in 2019.
The head of SoftBank's Vision Fund made $15 million in 2019 — despite the fund losing billions of dollars — while its COO made more than $19 million, per Reuters. Son himself made just under $2 million.
Son owns millions of dollars worth of property in Tokyo, where SoftBank is headquartered.Tiffany & Co. in Tokyo's Ginza district.
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In 2013, he spent $326 million on Tokyo's landmark Tiffany Building in the Ginza luxury shopping district, per Reuters. He reportedly sold the building in 2020 for an undisclosed amount.
He also owns a $117.5 million Silicon Valley estate that comes with a 9,000-square-foot house, a 1,117-square-foot pool house, a detached library, a swimming pool, a tennis court, and formal gardens, Forbes wrote in 2013. Son reportedly bought the Woodside, California, property in 2012 from private equity investor Tully Friedman.
Son is married and has at least two children, but he keeps his family life private.Son and his family keep their lives relatively private.
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The CEO married Masami Ohno, the daughter of a prominent Japanese doctor, while they were both students at UC Berkeley, The Seoul Times reported. The couple reportedly have two daughters, but little information about the family can be found online.
The SoftBank CEO reportedly has personal relationships with billionaire CEOs and entrepreneurs.Son with media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 1999.
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Son has ties to Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Rupert Murdoch, and Tadashi Yanai. He has visited Ellison's Silicon Valley home, where he met Steve Jobs, per Bloomberg.
Yanai sat on SoftBank's board of directors until he stepped down in December 2019.
Son reportedly once had a close relationship with Adam Neumann, the cofounder and former CEO of WeWork, in which SoftBank was once the biggest investor.WeWork's failure was bad news for SoftBank.
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Neumann told Business Insider in a 2019 interview that he and his wife, Rebekah, call Son "Yoda," in reference to the "Star Wars" character.
"He is Yoda," Neumann said. "He has the Force with him."
But WeWork's valuation plummeted amid its failed IPO attempt in September 2019. Son reportedly "lost faith" in Neumann and wanted him demoted, the Financial Times reported. A couple of days later, Neumann stepped down as CEO.
SoftBank took control of WeWork in a deal that gave Neumann almost $1.7 billion and required him to step down as chairman of the board. Son later said on an earnings call that he felt "foolish" for investing $18.5 billion into WeWork.
In 2019, SoftBank dumped its nearly 5% stake in chip-maker Nvidia — another stumble.Nvidia's Jensen Huang.
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SoftBank sold its 4.9% stake in Nvidia in 2019 for about $4 billion. If it hadn't, the position might've been worth more than $175 billion today.
In May 2019, SoftBank announced the creation of a second Vision Fund, after having already spent more than half of the first one.SoftBank launched another Vision Fund in 2019.
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"Various investors from around the world are telling us they definitely want to participate in Vision Fund 2. We will set it up soon," Son said at the beginning of May 2019, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Journal later reported that Son had trouble raising money for this new fund, a claim SoftBank disputed.
"While we don't comment on fundraising, much of The Wall Street Journal's reporting on investor sentiment is misleading and even inaccurate," a SoftBank spokesperson told Business Insider in an email in 2019.
In July 2019, the company announced plans for $108 billion worth of investments in its second Vision Fund.Vision Fund 2 has invested in several companies, including OpenAI.
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SoftBank confirmed that Apple, Foxconn, and others would invest in the fund, as well as Microsoft for the first time, BI previously reported.
Although Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund was the largest backer of the first Vision Fund, having contributed $45 billion of the fund's $100 billion bankroll, Saudi Arabia was missing from the list of backers for the new fund. Vision Fund 2 has a size of $56 billion as of 2025, according to Pitchbook. Its recent investments include ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
But SoftBank suffered following WeWork's downfall and amid the coronavirus pandemic.SoftBank had tough times in the years following the pandemic.
Yoshio Tsunoda/AFLO/Reuters
In April 2020, SoftBank said its Vision Fund would suffer a $17 billion annual operating loss.
SoftBank-backed companies including Oyo, Uber, Zume, and WeWork laid off over 29,000 people in 2020. In September that year, SoftBank's market value took a roughly $10 billion hit after The Wall Street Journal reported that it had been making massive, risky investments in tech stocks.
In June 2020, as protests over racial injustice and the death of George Floyd swept the globe, SoftBank announced the launch of a $100 million fund to invest in entrepreneurs of color.TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot is one of the fund's founding members.
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The fund was overseen by SoftBank's chief operating officer Marcelo Claure and two black tech leaders: TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot and Pindrop cofounder Paul Judge.
"When it comes to diversity, SoftBank absolutely has to do better as an employer, investor, and partner. But we can't just talk — we have to put money behind it, set plans, and hold ourselves accountable," Claure wrote in an email to employees. "This fund will only invest in companies led by founders and entrepreneurs of color."
The announcement came on the ninth day of protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by a white police officer, which started in Minneapolis and spread to all 50 states and countries including England, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the Philippines.
Softbank sold its Opportunity Fund to Claure and Judge in 2023.
Despite his company's losses post-pandemic, Son remained optimistic.Son led SoftBank through ups and downs caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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On an earnings call in May 2020, Son talked about how the coronavirus created a valley — the "Valley of Coronavirus" as he called it — that some companies would fall into, but other "unicorn" companies would be able to fly out of and succeed.
"Things will probably get worse," Son said in the call, per The New York Times. "But we will keep working hard to survive."
In August 2020, after three quarters of devastating losses, SoftBank finally reported a profit again and proceeded to make investments in Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, and Netflix.
SoftBank had another tough year in 2022.Masayoshi Son.
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SoftBank earned a reputation of writing big checks for cash-burning tech startups, but rising interest rates challenged that strategy as investors became more cautious of such investments in 2022. In an earnings call that year, SoftBank reported a nearly $10 billion in loss on its venture investments for the quarter.
"We have to be in defensive mode," Son said as he announced that subsequent calls would be handled by SoftBank's CFO.
In 2020, Softbank announced that it would sell its UK-based chip designer Arm to Nvidia for $40 billion, but the deal fell through in 2022 amid regulatory pressure. And in May 2023, its tech investment unit reported $32 billion in losses for its full year.
SoftBank sold its Alibaba stake in 2023.SoftBank saw a $72 billion gain from its investment in Alibaba.
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SoftBank first invested $20 million in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2000. It realized a $72 billion gain on its investments in Alibaba over the course of 23 years.
Son reportedly spent recent years unwinding Softbank's stake in the Chinese tech giant, however, amid local government crackdowns on corporates and as the Vision Fund lost billions.
Son's interest in AI began paying off in 2024.AI has helped Softbank recover from previous stumbles with investments.
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Son took a bold stance on AI in 2023, slamming its doubters at SoftBank's World corporate conference that year. His beliefs started to pay off as AI picked up steam in the tech industry.
Arm, the chip maker that SoftBank acquired in 2016, aims to put its products in the hands of tech companies to power their GenAI projects.
"Arm is central to our AI shift," CFO Yoshimitsu Goto said in May 2024.
"We have moved from Alibaba, and are focused on leading the AI revolution," Goto said during an earnings presentation in February 2024.
SoftBank invested $500 million in OpenAI in an October 2024 funding round.Son has lofty visions of where AI will take the world.
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The Japanese conglomerate was part of a $6.6 billion funding round with a $500 million investment in the ChatGPT maker. Son's commitment to an AI-powered future began before OpenAI became a household name; SoftBank's second Vision Fund backed the startup.
SoftBank became Nvidia's first customer for its Blackwell chips in November 2024.Nvidia and SoftBank have partnered to develop a supercomputer in Japan.
Nvidia
The Blackwell chips will be used to create an AI supercomputer in Japan, the companies said in November 2024. Demand for Nvidia's chips has exploded since AI took the tech industry by storm.
"Together we're going to build Japan's largest AI factory," Huang said at the company's AI summit in Tokyo.
The Blackwell chips are expected to ship in the first quarter of 2025.
SoftBank will invest $100 billion into US projects over the next 4 years.Son has ties to President Trump that go back as far as 2016.
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Donald Trump and Son came together in December 2024 to announce the deal, which Trump said will generate 100,000 jobs in the US. The investment will go towards building up the AI infrastructure, Associated Press reported.
Son reportedly pledged $50 billion in investments when Trump was elected in 2016.
Trump announced a $500 billion AI infrastructure investment plan involving SoftBank on January 21.Tech leaders joined Trump in announcing a $500 billion AI infrastructure deal in the US.
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Son joined OpenAI's Sam Altman, Oracle's Larry Ellison, and Trump to announce the planned private-sector investment. The president said the three companies would work together to boost AI infrastructure in the US in a project they're calling Stargate.
SoftBank's stock rose over 9% in Japan after the announcement.
"Together these world-leading technology giants are announcing the formation of Stargate," Trump said.
He added, "Put that name down in your books, because I think you're going to hear a lot about it."
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