SoftBank doesn’t have $100 billion on hand, but assembling giant pools of other people’s money is Son’s specialty. He got half of the Vision Fund’s $100 billion from Middle East governments and funded his dealmaking for years by mortgaging SoftBank’s stake in Alibaba to generate cash. The cornerstone of his telecom and technology empire — the 2006 purchase of Vodafone Japan — was done almost entirely with borrowed money. He has that in common with Trump, who has proudly dubbed himself the “King of debt.”
Semafor reported in October that SoftBank had discussed a partnership of at least $20 billion with Apollo to invest in data centers and other AI infrastructure. Those talks appear to have cooled, but expect Son to tap his global network to make good on his promise to Trump.
I asked Alok Sama, one of Son’s former top deputies at SoftBank, whether his old boss was good for the money. “With SoftBank’s current cash and leverage capacity, perhaps with investment partners, absolutely,” said Sama, whose recent book about his time at the company dives deep into Son’s love of financial alchemy.
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