SoftBank to borrow over $11 billion in risky bonds for OpenAI stake

SoftBank to borrow over $11 billion in risky bonds for OpenAI stake Maximilian Schreiner View the LinkedIn Profile of Maximilian Schreiner Sep 21, 2026 SoftBank plans to borrow more than $11 billion from investors through risky bonds to fund another payment for its stake in OpenAI. That's according…

SoftBank to borrow over $11 billion in risky bonds for OpenAI stake Maximilian Schreiner View the LinkedIn Profile of Maximilian Schreiner Sep 21, 2026 SoftBank plans to borrow more than $11 billion from investors through risky bonds to fund another payment for its stake in OpenAI. That's according to the Financial Times, which cited investor documents. These are known as junk bonds. They pay high interest, but they also carry a bigger risk that investors won't see their money again. Most other big tech firms have issued safer bonds recently, the FT reports. SoftBank is planning bonds worth $10 billion and 1 billion euros. The terms should be set Thursday, and the payment to OpenAI is due in October. The Japanese company had already lined up short-term loans of up to $40 billion for OpenAI. Now it wants to swap those for longer-term debt, a move that could push SoftBank past its own debt ceiling for a while. OpenAI expects to burn through nearly $280 billion in cash by the end of 2030, according to the FT. SoftBank's data center business is also counting on its OpenAI contracts for future revenue.AdAd AI News Without the Hype – Curated by Humans Subscribe to THE DECODER for ad-free reading, a weekly AI newsletter, our exclusive "AI Radar" frontier report six times a year, full archive access, and access to our comment section. Subscribe now Source: FT

Source: The Decoder — Published September 21, 2026 at 14:35 UTC — Category: Models