SoftBank closes an $11.87 billion two-year loan to keep funding OpenAI
About 20 banks committed last week to a facility larger than the $10 billion target. SoftBank is due to repay $25.9 billion of an earlier $40 billion OpenAI bridge on 15 September and still plans about $65 billion into OpenAI by October.
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SoftBank Group sealed an $11.87 billion two-year loan last week to support its investment in OpenAI, people familiar with the transaction told Bloomberg. The facility came in above a $10 billion target and drew commitments from about 20 banks. SoftBank declined to comment.
The timing is tight. SoftBank said last week it would repay the remaining $25.9 billion of a $40 billion loan it raised earlier this year to fund OpenAI. That repayment is due on 15 September. The unsecured borrowing had been scheduled to mature in March 2027. Replacing part of a short bridge with a two-year committed line is how a borrower keeps the same asset without keeping the same due date.
The new loan sits on top of other OpenAI-linked paper. SoftBank already has a $10 billion margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake. It has also discussed a bond sale of as much as $20 billion. People familiar with the firm said in August that it was looking at $10 billion to $20 billion of additional fundraising. Masayoshi Son's group has said it intends to put about $65 billion into OpenAI by October.
A funding chain that now has a political weather system
The loan closed in the same week that Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei published an essay arguing the industry should slow the frontier. Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk offered public support for a slower pace. Altman said OpenAI would not list in 2026. SoftBank shares fell as much as 13 percent on 14 September, the most since 17 July.
Banks that signed a two-year OpenAI facility last week did so with that essay already in the market. They also did so with US senators talking about a duty of care for frontier models and with President Donald Trump calling statutory guardrails a conspiracy. Credit committees do not vote on essays. They do reprice a borrower when the equity that supports a margin loan drops 13 percent in a session.
SoftBank's OpenAI bet is large enough that a pause in model releases, a delayed listing, or a statutory test before deployment would change the cash calendar Son has described. The $11.87 billion line does not resolve that. It buys two years of time and keeps the October $65 billion target from colliding with the 15 September repayment.
What "upsized" actually means
An upsize from $10 billion to $11.87 billion is not a vote of confidence in AI safety debates. It is evidence that enough banks still want the SoftBank name on a two-year unsecured or lightly structured ticket. Twenty lenders sharing $11.87 billion is about $600 million a seat if the book is even, which it will not be. Lead houses will hold more. Regional houses will hold less.
The credit question is simple and ugly. If OpenAI's private mark falls, the $10 billion margin loan asks for more collateral or a paydown. If SoftBank's own shares keep sliding, the group's other lenders look at the same name across several facilities at once. The new $11.87 billion line is short enough that those reviews will come before the money is fully out the door to OpenAI.
Son has funded large, concentrated bets before. This one is concentrated in a single private company whose chief executive now says a public listing is off the 2026 calendar. The banks that signed last week are underwriting that calendar, not the essay.
