SoftBank's Masayoshi Son Abandons Retirement to Chase AI Ambitions

Masayoshi Son, the 68-year-old founder and CEO of SoftBank Group, has scrapped his long-held plan to retire in his sixties, declaring he will lead the Japanese tech conglomerate for at least another decade as he pivots the company decisively toward artificial intelligence and robotics.

“I don’t have time to retire — SoftBank is pursuing fundamentally meaningful long-term technology development,” Son said, according to a Bloomberg report. The billionaire entrepreneur revealed he has already revised the company’s original 50-year roadmap and now intends to remain at the helm for another 10 to 15 years.

The decision underscores Son’s conviction that AI represents the most transformative technological shift of his lifetime. Under his leadership, SoftBank is aggressively repositioning from a telecoms-and-investment holding company into what Son envisions as the world’s premier AI robotics powerhouse.

The numbers behind that ambition are staggering. SoftBank has committed approximately $65 billion to OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, cementing its role as one of the AI industry’s most consequential backers. In a parallel move into physical AI, the group has agreed to acquire ABB’s robotics division at a valuation of $5.4 billion, marrying industrial automation expertise with SoftBank’s AI software ambitions.

SoftBank already holds close to 90% of Arm Holdings, the British chip design firm whose architectures power virtually every smartphone on the planet and are increasingly central to AI data-center silicon. That asset alone gives Son a seat at the table as the world races to build AI infrastructure.

According to people familiar with the matter, SoftBank is also planning to establish a new US-based AI robotics company called Roze, further expanding its footprint in a field Son clearly believes will define the next era of computing.