Nvidia Corporation’s (NASDAQ: NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang once teased his friend SoftBank Group (OTC: SFTBF) (OTC: SFTBY) founder Masayoshi Son at an AI summit, recalling a moment about which the duo wanted to “cry together.”
Huang Reminds Son Of A Painful Exit
At Nvidia’s AI Summit in Tokyo in November 2024, CEO Huang invited SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son on stage and surprised the audience with a little-known story.
Son was once Nvidia’s largest shareholder, owning about 5% of the chipmaker before selling the stake in 2019 for around $3.3 billion to fund SoftBank’s Vision Fund.
The conversation turned playful when Son pretended to cry on Huang’s shoulder over SoftBank’s exit. “We can cry together,” Huang joked, drawing more laughter from the audience.
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Masayoshi Son Once Offered Jensen Huang Funds To Buy Nvidia
Nearly a decade ago, Son had offered to lend him the money to buy Nvidia outright.
Huang recalled that the two had attempted such a move multiple times, while Son stated that SoftBank had once independently acquired shares from the market.
He went on to hint at private conversations they had held years ago, prompting Huang to jokingly urge him not to share too much.
Son eventually recounted a meeting from a decade earlier, telling Huang at the time, “The market does not understand the value of Nvidia. Your future is incredible.”
“Let me give you the money to buy Nvidia,” Huang recalled Son telling him. “All of it. Now I regret not taking you up on it. That was a great idea.”
A Missed Merger With Arm Holdings
Huang also revealed that the discussion about buying Nvidia came shortly after SoftBank acquired Arm Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) in 2016 for $32 billion.
At the time, the two explored the idea of combining Arm and Nvidia — a merger that never materialized. SoftBank later took Arm public again in 2023.
The Japanese billionaire offered financial backing to take Nvidia private, but Huang declined.
Masayoshi Son’s Biggest Regret
In early 2024, Son admitted during a shareholder meeting that selling Nvidia was “the fish that got away.”
At the time, he said SoftBank had missed out on a windfall of more than $150 billion.
In August, investment giant SoftBank released its first-quarter results, reporting net sales of 1.82 trillion yen ($12.54 billion), up from 1.70 trillion yen ($11.71 billion) in the same period last year.
At the time of the transaction, SoftBank’s Vision Fund owned a 4.9% stake in Nvidia, earning $3.3 billion from its original $700 million investment.
During the same summit, Nvidia and SoftBank revealed that they are joining forces to build Japan’s most advanced AI supercomputer, signaling a major move in the nation’s efforts to strengthen its position in the global AI landscape.
Nvidia today has a market cap of $4.32 trillion. According to Benzinga Pro, Nvidia shares have climbed 43.25% over the past year and are up 28.47% year to date.
Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings show that NVDA is maintaining an upward trend across short, medium and long-term timeframes, with more performance insights available here.
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