SoftBank Founder Masayoshi Son is pictured here in 2019 during an earnings presentation.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Getty Images
SoftBank posted an investment gain on its Vision Fund in the fiscal second quarter but booked another quarterly loss.
Here’s how SoftBank did in the September quarter against LSEG estimates:
Net sales: 1.67 trillion Japanese yen ($11 billion) versus 1.6 trillion yen expected
Net loss: 931.1 billion yen ($6.2 billion) versus an expected loss of 114.1 billion yen
For the first half of SoftBank’s fiscal year, it posted a 1.41 trillion loss ($9.3 billion). This compares to a 3 trillion yen profit in the same period last year. SoftBank said a weaker yen hit the company since it has a lot of U.S.-dollar denominated liabilities.
SoftBank’s Vision Fund posted an investment gain of 21.3 billion yen, its second straight quarter of gains. The company said this was due to a gain arising from the sale of shares in chip designer Arm to a subsidiary of SoftBank.
This offset a decline in the value of companies SoftBank is invested in, such as Chinese artificial intelligence firm SenseTime.
“The environment is still tough … but we believe we have hit a bottom and are making good moves towards positive figures,” SoftBank Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto said on Thursday during an earnings presentation.
WeWork bankcruptcy hit
However, the overall SoftBank Vision Fund segment posted a pre-tax loss of 258.86 billion yen.
SoftBank recorded a loss of 234.4 billion yen for the half-year period related to the investment and financial support provided to WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. this week. SoftBank was one of the biggest backers of the co-working space firm, which tried and failed to go public five years ago.
Critics of SoftBank’s investment strategy point toward WeWork as an example of a lack of discipline, at times, from the Vision Fund. SoftBank’s high-profile founder Masayoshi Son once said WeWork is at the forefront of a “revolution” in the way people work.
Goto addressed the WeWork bankruptcy and said SoftBank should learn lessons from it.
“First of all, I am very story to hear that. As a company we need to accept this reality and also need to learn the lesson from this for our future investment activity,” Goto said.
SoftBank’s flagship tech investment arm had a rough time in the fiscal year that ended in March this year, posting a record loss of around $32 billion. A slump in tech stock prices and the souring of some of SoftBank’s bets in China were to blame.
In the June quarter, the Vision Fund posted its first investment gain in five consecutive quarters, signalling early signs of growth again. This has coincided with recoveries in the prices of technology stocks.
“We are investing in AI and that’s the main strategy for our company,” Goto said.
Son, who used to lead SoftBank’s earnings presentations with colorful presentations, has not been present for several quarters. But Son has been “devoting himself and involved in the discussion, how and what is going to be the changes in people’s lives from the AI revolution,” Goto said.
The CFO added that SoftBank wants to be a front runner of the AI revolution.
Arm on Wednesday reported its first set of results since its IPO, posting an annual rise in revenue for the September quarter. However, the semiconductor firm gave guidance for the December quarter that disappointed investors, sending its shares lower in after-hours trade in the U.S.
Correction: The headline of this article has been updated to reflect a$6.2 billion quarterly loss.
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a “Morning Meeting” livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here’s a recap of Tuesday’s key moments. 1. Stocks were mixed on Tuesday, with the S & P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average up and the Nasdaq Composite down slightly, with Big Tech names under pressure. Nvidia shares fell more than 6% after The Information reported that Meta may use Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) in its data centers starting in 2027. Broadcom , which helps Google design its TPUs, jumped 11% Monday on the news. Jim Cramer said the pullback in Nvidia is a buying opportunity. “If you don’t have any Nvidia, it’s time to buy,” he said. He added investors are also “getting an opportunity to buy Meta” on the possibility the company could save money on chips and see its stock bounce. 2. This “discouraging day” for tech investors shows the value of having a diversified portfolio, Jim said. That’s why the Club favors defensive names like Procter & Gamble . With a new CEO taking over in January, Jim expects changes ahead. “You can’t have a new CEO come in and not have some change from what’s going on,” he said, noting that underperforming units will likely be cut. Procter has been a disappointment lately, but our thesis is that money will move out of high-flying tech stocks and into more profitable, economically resistant companies. That’s why we added to our position on Tuesday. Elsewhere, home improvement retailer Home Depot is down nearly 12% year to date. We used that weakness to add to our position last week. When interest rates fall, the stock will rise. 3. Shares of Nike are up 3% after Dick’s Sporting Goods announced plans to close a slew of Foot Locker locations during its third-quarter earnings on Tuesday. Dick’s acquired Foot Locker in May. “Nike is a buy, off of Dick’s problems,” Jim said. Ed Stack, executive chairman of Dick’s Sporting Goods, told “Squawk on the Street” that the retailer’s relationship with Nike is improving. “They’re moving in the right direction,” he said, citing strong performance from Nike’s running line. “If you take a look at what they did with their running construct, what they did with Pegasus, what they did with Vomero, what they did with Structure, this running concept has done extremely well on the Dick’s side, and where it’s been put into Foot Locker stores, it’s done really well there too.” 4. Stocks covered in Tuesday’s rapid fire at the end of the video were: Best Buy , Agilent Tech , and Abercrombie . (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long NVDA, META, AVGO, PG, HD, NKE. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Elon Musk attends the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 19, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is expected to close a $15 billion round at a $230 billion pre-money valuation next month, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC’s David Faber.
The deadline for allocation is the end of day on Tuesday, with the round expected to close on Dec. 19, the sources said.
This confirms earlier CNBC reporting that the company was raising $15 billion. The Tesla CEO later called the report on the round “False” in a post on the social media platform X.
At the time, sources told CNBC that xAI would use a large portion of the money for funding graphics processing units responsible for powering large language models.
CNBC had previously reported in September that the startup was looking to raise $10 billion at a $200 billion valuation.
The funding round is yet another sign of the insatiable demand for AI tools. Companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, have raised billions and reached sky-high valuations as investors pour more money into companies building foundational AI models.
Musk’s xAI is responsible for creating the Grok chatbot that has come under fire for disseminating hate speech, including antisemitic content. The company recently debuted Grokipedia, an AI-powered competitor to Wikipedia.
In March, Musk announced the merger of xAI with X in a deal valuing the social media platform at $33 billion.
TSMC on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against a former senior vice president it accused of leaking “confidential information” to Intel.
Wei-Jen Lo joined Intel after 21 years at TSMC, having left in July, the Taiwanese chip maker said in a statement, announcing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is based on Lo’s employment contract and non-compete agreement with TSMC, and regulations such as the Trade Secrets Act, the statement said.
“There is a high probability that Lo uses, leaks, discloses, delivers, or transfers TSMC’s trade secrets and confidential information to Intel,” it said.
TSMC’s share price fell on Tuesday and was last seen over 3% lower.
Intel did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
It follows earlier reports by local media and later by Reuters, which stated Lo may have taken TSMC’s technology data to Intel. Taiwan’s High Prosecutors opened an investigation into the allegations.
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan told Bloomberg News last week that his “company respects intellectual property rights” and denied any wrongdoing.
The U.S. firm’s stock price moved 1.5% lower in mid-morning trade.
