SoftBank sells T-Mobile stake for $4.8 billion: How the mega share sale boosts Masayoshi Son's AI push

SoftBank Group Corp raised around $4.8 billion by selling its stake in T-Mobile US, a move intended to fund the company’s grandiose plans for artificial intelligence.

The Japanese company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is ramping up investments aimed at making artificial intelligence (AI) reasoning superior to human reasoning.

All about the block sale

The Tokyo-based technology giant sold 21.5 million T-Mobile shares for $224 each, pricing at the bottom of the $224 to $228 range in an unregistered overnight block sale, according to Bloomberg.

The offering, which Bloomberg reported earlier, represents a discount of 3 per cent to T-Mobile US’ Monday closing price of $230.99 per share.

According to Bloomberg, Son is overseeing plans to invest as much as $30 billion in OpenAI and is also working with the ChatGPT creator to put hundreds of billions of dollars into data centres and related infrastructure around the world under the Stargate banner.

Stock market reaction

After the sale, T-Mobile shares fell 3.9 per cent in extended trading, while SoftBank’s shares rose 2.1 per cent in Tokyo, reported Bloomberg.

The deal is the biggest US stake sale since Toronto-Dominion Bank sold a $13.1 billion stake in brokerage firm Charles Schwab Corp in February.

Sales of new and existing shares in US-listed companies reached $91.4 billion in the year to date, up from $75.9 billion in the same period a year ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The T-Mobile stake sale would be the latest example of Son following his past investment successes, such as an early bet on Alibaba Group Holding that yielded thousands-fold returns to fund new ventures, reported Bloomberg.

SoftBank’s ownership in T-Mobile

SoftBank received the shares of T-Mobile after the completion of the US telecom company’s $26.5 billion acquisition of Sprint Corp in April 2020. Later that year, SoftBank substantially reduced its stake in T-Mobile via a $21 billion deal that helped pay for a record buyback of SoftBank’s shares.

The stake offered represents about 1.9 per cent of T-Mobile’s outstanding shares, according to Bloomberg. SoftBank owned 85.4 million shares or 7.5 per cent of T-Mobile as of March 31, 2025.

Deutsche Telekom AG is T-Mobile’s largest shareholder with a 59 per cent stake, according to Bloomberg. Bank of America Corp was the sole bookrunner for the deal.

SoftBank Founder is bullish on AI 

Last year, Masayoshi Son claimed that Artificial super intelligence will be 10,000 times smarter than a human brain and will exist by 2035.

Addressing an audience of global business, technology and finance leaders at a conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Son said he is saving up funds so that he can make the next big move in the AI sector but did not provide any details as to his investment plans back then. 

He also predicted that generative AI will require $900 trillion dollars in cumulative capital expenditure in data centres and chips in the future, reporter Reuters.