SoftBank Tops Toyota in a Rally That Echoes Son’s 2000 Peak

SoftBank Group overtook Toyota Motor on Monday to become Japan’s most valuable listed company, the first change at the top of the Tokyo market in 22 years. The tech conglomerate’s market capitalization touched 46.5 trillion yen in intraday trading, nudging past Toyota’s 45.8 trillion yen, while an artificial intelligence (AI) rally carried the Nikkei 225 stock average above 67,000 for the first time.

The milestone is real, and the warning bolted to it is just as real. The last time Masayoshi Son’s company sat on top of a Japanese market mania, in early 2000, its shares went on to shed almost everything they had gained within two years.

SoftBank’s ¥46 Trillion Climb Ends a 22-Year Order

SoftBank stock has run hot all year. Shares changed hands near 8,150 yen on Monday, up more than 90% in 2026 and close to four times their level a year ago. That single line did the heavy lifting, pushing the holding company past a carmaker that had anchored corporate Japan’s top spot since 2004.

Toyota, by contrast, has gone the other way. Its stock is down roughly 11.7% so far this year, dragged by U.S. import tariffs that erased the company’s North American operating profit for the financial year that ended in March. One firm sells AI promise; the other sells 10 million vehicles a year into a trade war.

The crossover is narrow, and on any given session the two could swap places again. What matters is the direction of travel and the engines behind it, which look nothing alike.

The OpenAI Stake and a €75 Billion European Push

Two announcements explain why traders crowded into the stock. One is the size of SoftBank’s position in the company building ChatGPT. The other is a fresh promise to pour money into AI plants on the ground in Europe.

The Bet That Kept Compounding

In February, SoftBank agreed to a $30 billion follow-on into ChatGPT maker OpenAI, lifting its cumulative commitment to $64.6 billion for an ownership interest of about 13%, according to SoftBank’s follow-on OpenAI investment disclosure. The cash arrives in three $10 billion tranches across April, July and October. The investment came in at a pre-money valuation of $730 billion.

OpenAI’s mark has only climbed since. A later round drew in NVIDIA and Amazon alongside SoftBank and stamped the company at an $852 billion post-money valuation, per OpenAI’s own funding announcement. A separate jury verdict that cleared OpenAI’s path toward a public listing removed one more overhang. SoftBank’s slice is now valued near $110 billion on paper, and the gain ran straight through its Vision Fund accounts.

Pouring Concrete in Northern France

Days before the crossover, Son stood at President Emmanuel Macron’s Choose France summit and pledged up to €75 billion ($87 billion) to build 5 gigawatts (GW) of AI data centers in France. A first phase of €45 billion over five years targets 3.1 GW of capacity in the Hauts-de-France region, with sites at Dunkirk, Bosquel and Bouchain by 2031.

That European plan sits on top of the roughly $500 billion Stargate program SoftBank is pursuing in the United States with OpenAI, Oracle and Abu Dhabi’s MGX. Added together, the commitments paint Son as the single most aggressive financier of the AI buildout anywhere.

• $64.6 billion committed to OpenAI, an ownership interest near 13%.
• $110 billion estimated value of that stake at OpenAI’s latest mark.
• Up to €75 billion earmarked for 5 gigawatts of AI data centers in France.
• $500 billion headline figure for the Stargate buildout with OpenAI, Oracle and MGX.

Son Stood at This Summit Once Before

The number-one ranking is not new territory for Son. At the height of the dot-com bubble in late 1999 and early 2000, his net worth was rising by about $10 billion a week, and for three days he was the richest person on the planet. SoftBank stock traded above 20,000 yen.

Then the internet trade broke. SoftBank shares fell 75% in two months and finished 2000 down roughly nearly 93%, sliding toward 2,000 yen by 2002 as the company brushed close to collapse. Son has said he lost about 99% of his personal wealth, some $70 billion of a $78 billion fortune at the peak.

Losing 99% of my wealth taught me to value money again.

That line is Son’s own, recounting the crash years later. He rebuilt on the back of a roughly $54 million bet on Alibaba that returned some $72 billion by the time SoftBank exited in 2023. The lesson Japanese investors took was simpler: when Son’s company tops the market, the cycle is usually late.

Where the 2000 Echo Holds and Where It Breaks

The rhyme is loud. In both eras, a single conviction about a world-changing technology lifted SoftBank above slower industrial giants, and in both the valuation rested heavily on holdings in young, unprofitable companies. Son is again the loudest bull in the room, and again the bull whose balance sheet carries the most leverage.

But the breaks matter too. In 2000, SoftBank owned slices of dozens of speculative web start-ups with thin revenue. Today its centerpiece, OpenAI, runs a product used by hundreds of millions and books billions in sales, even if it loses money. Arm Holdings, the British chip designer SoftBank controls, is a profitable, listed business with real licensing income.

The other difference is structural. SoftBank is no longer a scrappy internet incubator but a sprawling holding company that can pledge tens of billions toward physical infrastructure, power contracts and chips. That makes the bet more durable than the 2000 portfolio, and also far more expensive to unwind if sentiment turns.

So the pattern is not a forecast. It is a reminder that the same investor, at the same perch, has watched this kind of momentum reverse hard once before.

The Lenders and Raters Reading the Same Tape

Not everyone is treating SoftBank’s paper gains as money in the bank. The numbers powering the rally are unrealized, and several professional skeptics have started pricing in what happens if the AI trade cools before those gains are cashed.

• S&P Global Ratings, a major credit-rating agency, moved its outlook on SoftBank to negative, citing liquidity strain and credit risk from the scale of the AI spending.
• SoftBank trimmed a planned margin loan against its OpenAI shares from about $10 billion toward $6 billion after lenders balked at valuing unlisted stock.
• OpenAI is projecting losses of roughly $14 billion this year even as its valuation runs past $850 billion.
• Analysts have flagged more than $800 billion of circular AI deals, where suppliers fund customers that then turn around and buy the suppliers’ products.

Toyota Slipped on Tariffs, Not on Son

Lost in the AI noise is that Toyota did not give up the crown because it stumbled at making cars. It gave it up because Washington made selling them into the United States far more costly.

U.S. tariffs carved a projected 1.45 trillion yen, around $9.5 billion, out of Toyota’s annual profit, enough to erase its entire North American operating result and tip the region to a loss for the year ended March 31. Fourth-quarter operating profit fell 49%, and full-year operating income dropped about 21.5% to 3.8 trillion yen despite record electrified-vehicle sales.

None of that is SoftBank’s doing. The two companies simply moved on opposite tides, one lifted by a technology boom, the other squeezed by trade policy and softer demand in China.

Which is why the ranking flip says less about cars than about how much investors are now willing to pay for the AI story. The valuation gap between the two is thin enough that a single hard tape could close it.

If OpenAI eventually lists near its current mark, Son’s paper gains turn into real money and the 2000 comparison fades on its own. If the AI trade cracks first, SoftBank has been at the very top of this chart before, and Japan’s market still remembers how that chapter finished.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice. Equity investments, including shares in SoftBank Group and Toyota Motor, carry risk, and valuations tied to private holdings such as OpenAI can change quickly. Consult a qualified financial professional before acting. All figures are accurate as of publication on June 1, 2026.