In the battle for AI, the next few years will be far more important than what might happen a decade or so from now.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
He also cited the steep cost of launching equipment into orbit, the difficulty of maintaining hardware in space, and communication latency between ground and orbit.<\/p>\n
Son acknowledged Musk as an “extraordinary agent of change,” but drew a firm line on timing and priorities in the current AI race, Bloomberg confirmed.<\/p>\n
SoftBank’s ground-first AI bets: from Stargate to artificial superintelligence<\/h2>\n
SoftBank committed $19 billion to the Stargate project alongside OpenAI in January 2025, according to Fortune, an initiative that plans to invest $500 billion over four years in U.S.-based AI infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Son has also invested heavily in chips through SoftBank\u2019s dominant stake in Arm Holdings, the British designer whose blueprints power processors across the technology industry.<\/p>\n
At SoftBank Group’s parent company annual shareholder meeting the following day, Son set a target to grow the firm’s net asset value to 1 quadrillion yen over the next 16 years, Fortune reported.<\/p>\n
That figure, equivalent to roughly $6.4 trillion, would be driven by the company\u2019s pursuit of what Son calls \u201cartificial superintelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n SOPA Images/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The orbital critique is only the latest flashpoint between two billionaires with a history of public disagreements stretching back nearly a decade.<\/p>\n Elon Musk and Son met in 2017 to discuss a potential SoftBank investment in Tesla, but the talks collapsed over disagreements about ownership structure, Bloomberg reported.<\/p>\n More AI:<\/strong><\/p>\n After Stargate was announced in January 2025, Musk questioned its financial footing on X (the former Twitter), claiming SoftBank had secured well under $10 billion.<\/p>\n SoftBank has since backed its commitment with acquisitions, including a $5.4 billion purchase of ABB Robotics and a $4 billion DigitalBridge deal.<\/p>\n SpaceX went public on June 12 in the largest initial public offering in financial history, raising approximately $75 billion at a valuation of about $1.77 trillion, according to CNBC.<\/p>\n Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens valued SpaceX at just $63 per share in a June report, well below the $135 offering price. <\/p>\n Owens estimated that investors were effectively paying a $72-per-share premium for the chance to profit from speculative future projects such as orbital data centers.<\/p>\n Morningstar assigned a 43% probability to a scenario in which orbital data centers never become commercially viable, and just 7% to its most optimistic outcome.<\/p>\n Global data centers consumed roughly 415 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, about 1.5% of global electricity consumption, according to the International Energy Agency, and Gartner estimates the figure rose to about 448 terawatt-hours in 2025.<\/p>\n That figure is projected to more than double by 2030, reaching roughly 945 terawatt-hours annually, driven by the rapid expansion of AI computing workloads.<\/p>\n Son\u2019s position is that the urgency of this energy crisis favors his approach, as terrestrial construction can deliver new capacity within months rather than years.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe who strikes first wins,\u201d Son told shareholders, as Japan Times reported, condensing his strategic thesis into a single sentence that functions as both a commitment and a warning.\u00a0<\/p>\n Related: SoftBank CEO doubles down on AI, stock market message for 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n #SoftBank #CEO #offers #stinging #critique #Musks #bet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SoftBank Group (SFTBY) chief executive Masayoshi Son told shareholders this week that Elon Musk\u2019s plan to build data centers in orbit is a losing bet, Fortune reported. Son, who has… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[246],"tags":[157,369,11699,3160,122,5356,8427],"class_list":["post-9782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-popular","tag-bet","tag-ceo","tag-critique","tag-musks","tag-offers","tag-softbank","tag-stinging"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.thestreet.com\/.image\/NDA6MDAwMDAwMDAzMDk1ODI0\/crowd-at-softbanks-exhibition.jpg?profile=rss\")
The Son and Musk rivalry over AI runs deeper than orbital data centers<\/h2>\n
\n
SpaceX\u2019s record IPO puts serious money behind Musk\u2019s orbital ambitions<\/h2>\n
Global energy demand gives both sides of the data center debate real urgency<\/h2>\n