Masayoshi Son

In 2016, Masayoshi Son flew to Riyadh and secured a $45 billion commitment from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund in a 45-minute meeting with Mohammed bin Salman. The PIF is MBS's sovereign wealth fund; MBS is its chairman. A CIA assessment declassified in February 2021 concluded that MBS approved the operation that murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Son declined calls to return the capital. He told the New York Times in 2019 that he felt "obligated" to honor the partnership. The $45B gave MBS a stake in virtually every major Silicon Valley startup of the 2017–2023 era: Uber, DoorDash, WeWork, Slack, Grab, Didi, Compass, and dozens more.

• —The Vision Fund launched in 2017 with $100B in total capital. PIF's $45B was the single largest LP commitment — 45% of the fund.
• —Abu Dhabi's Mubadala contributed $15B; the remaining $40B came from corporate investors including Apple, Qualcomm, Foxconn, and SoftBank itself.
• —Son reportedly told MBS in Riyadh: "I'm here to invest 50 billion dollars." The $45B commitment came out of that meeting.
• —After Khashoggi's murder in October 2018, multiple sovereign funds distanced themselves from PIF-adjacent investments. Son doubled down.
• —Vision Fund 2 (2019) also drew Saudi capital, though on different terms. The relationship continued.
• —The CIA assessment (Office of the Director of National Intelligence, February 2021) concluded: "We assess that Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi."

SoftBank poured $10.3 billion into WeWork across multiple rounds. Son personally championed founder Adam Neumann, comparing him internally to Alibaba's Jack Ma and calling him "a once-in-a-century entrepreneur." The 2019 IPO prospectus revealed a company losing $1.9B on $1.8B in revenue — and a founder who had taken loans from the company, sold company property back to it, and trademarked "We" personally before licensing it to WeWork for $5.9M. The IPO collapsed. SoftBank wrote down $9.2 billion. What happened next defined the moral logic: Neumann received a $1.7 billion exit package — $970M for shares, $185M "consulting fee," $500M in loan credits, and $46M per year as a retained consultant. WeWork then laid off 2,400 employees, nearly 20% of its global workforce.

• —SoftBank's total WeWork investment: approximately $10.3B across multiple funding rounds from 2017 to 2019.
• —At peak, SoftBank's investment valued WeWork at $47B — one of the highest private valuations in history.
• —The IPO prospectus, filed in August 2019, revealed Neumann had taken $700M in loans from WeWork, sold company property back to itself, and taken a personal "$5.9M brand fee" for licensing the trademark "We."
• —After the IPO was pulled in September 2019, Neumann was removed as CEO. SoftBank then paid him to leave: $970M for shares + $185M "consulting fee" + $500M loan facility = approximately $1.7B.
• —WeWork laid off 2,400 workers — 20% of the global workforce — in November 2019. Further layoffs followed in 2020.
• —SoftBank wrote down $9.2B — roughly 90% of its total investment. Son described it as "embarrassing."

SoftBank's Vision Fund was the primary capital engine behind the gig economy's most aggressive expansion phase. The fund invested approximately $7.7 billion in Uber, plus major positions in DoorDash, Grab, and Didi. Each of these companies built market dominance using a single strategy: classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees, denying minimum wage guarantees, overtime, healthcare, and labor protections. SoftBank capital allowed these companies to burn cash at rates no competitor could match — subsidizing rides and deliveries below cost, expanding globally, and surviving years of losses. When regulators threatened this model in California, SoftBank-backed companies spent more than $200 million on Proposition 22, permanently exempting them from state labor law. The workers never got a vote.

• —Uber received approximately $7.7B from SoftBank — Son personally led the investment and briefly sat on Uber's board.
• —Uber's business model classified approximately 5 million drivers globally as independent contractors, avoiding minimum wage, overtime, benefits, and workers' comp.
• —DoorDash, also a major Vision Fund investment, was found by multiple city attorneys to have paid delivery workers below minimum wage by counting tips as wages — a documented form of wage theft.
• —California's Proposition 22, passed November 2020, permanently exempted gig companies from AB5, which would have required employee classification. The $200M+ campaign was funded largely by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart — all companies that Vision Fund capital had backed or enabled.
• —Vision Fund absorbed $23.1B in losses in a single quarter (August 2022) — this capacity to absorb losses was what gave gig companies runway to out-survive competitors and establish market dominance.
• —Grab (Southeast Asia) and Didi (China) replicated the same misclassification model across dozens of jurisdictions with even weaker labor enforcement.

Son raised the Vision Fund on his Alibaba track record and a thesis: software was eating the world, and the fund that owned the winners would dominate. He deployed $100 billion at valuations that bore no relationship to fundamentals. Katerra burned through $3 billion and collapsed in 2021 without a viable product. Zymergen went public at a $3 billion valuation and collapsed in four months as it became clear its primary product had no market. Wirecard, a portfolio company, was discovered to have fabricated €1.9 billion in cash — basic due diligence had apparently missed a fraud. Vision Fund posted $27.4B in losses for FY2022 and a record $32B for FY2023. Investors in the fund included sovereign wealth funds, institutional investors, and pension funds. Son told investors he was "embarrassed" and "ashamed." He also described himself as "a genius who ran out of fuel." No charges were filed.

• —Katerra (construction tech): received approximately $3B from SoftBank/Vision Fund. Collapsed June 2021. Creditors received pennies on the dollar.
• —Wirecard (German payments): SoftBank invested €900M in 2019. In June 2020, Wirecard disclosed that €1.9B in cash "probably does not exist." The company had been a fraud throughout.
• —Zymergen (biotech): went public at a $3B+ valuation in April 2021 with SoftBank as a key backer. By August 2021, four months later, it disclosed that its primary product had no near-term revenue path. The stock fell 80% in a day.
• —Vision Fund FY2022 loss: $27.4B — then the record. FY2023: $32B — a new record.
• —At SoftBank's 2022 annual meeting, Son told investors: "I am embarrassed and ashamed about this." He also said he was "like a genius who ran out of fuel."
• —Investors who backed Vision Fund included Abu Dhabi's Mubadala, Apple, Qualcomm, and multiple institutional funds with pension exposure.