SoftBank Group's abruptscaling back of a planned $10 billion margin loan backed by its roughly 13% stake in OpenAI- now targeting as little as $6 billion - revealsdeepening lender unease over the AI giant’s $852 billion post-money valuation set in March 2026.
The move follows earlier $40 billion bridge financing and comes amid reports that OpenAI missed internal revenue and weekly-active-user targets earlier this year.
While the loan itself is SoftBank’s problem, the episode carries real risks for OpenAI.
The clearest danger is a loss of valuation momentum (a down-round!).
Reutersreports thatlenders, including banks and private-credit funds, balked at assigning reliable collateral value to unlisted shares in a company whose secondary-market demand has already cooled.
With sellers reportedly outnumbering buyers and rival Anthropic drawing stronger interest, the episode reinforces perceptions that OpenAI’s headline valuation may be frothy.
This could make future capital raises more expensive or dilutive, especiallyif OpenAI needs additional funding to service its enormous compute commitments- estimated in the hundreds of billions over the next few years.
An anticipated IPO, once seen as straightforward at premium multiples, might now face haircuts or heavier scrutiny from public-market investors wary of missing-growth signals.
SoftBank’s own leverage adds indirect pressure.
The Japanese conglomerate is one of OpenAI’s largest backers and has layered significant debt atop its AI bets.
Source: ZeroHedge News
