SoftBank Group swung to a quarterly profit of ¥248.59 billion ($1.6 billion), its first in four years, driven by a massive $19.8 billion valuation gain on its stake in OpenAI. Masayoshi Son's $30 billion-plus bet on the ChatGPT creator, now representing roughly 30% of SoftBank's net asset value, proved lucrative.

This stake positions SoftBank as the primary public market conduit for OpenAI exposure, a key insight from BTIG analyst Jesse Sobelson. The company's shares are now tightly linked to OpenAI's performance against rivals like Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude. SoftBank's investment gain on OpenAI stood at an estimated $19.8 billion as of December, cementing its role as an investment proxy for the AI startup.