SoftBank Paid OpenAI $5.5 Billion Just to Be Its Landlord

OpenAI holds warrants in SoftBank's data-center venture SB Energy now worth roughly $5.5 billion, up from $3.6 billion when SB Energy issued them in January, according to draft IPO documents reviewed by the Wall Street Journal and reported Monday.

SB Energy handed over the warrants as an inducement to lock OpenAI in as a tenant, not as compensation for anything OpenAI built or sold. OpenAI never received the value in cash. The warrants vest in stages once SB Energy goes public and hits set valuation targets.

The arrangement runs the landlord-tenant relationship in reverse. OpenAI is simultaneously an investor in SB Energy, a customer of it, and now a warrant holder profiting from its valuation. It put $500 million into the company alongside a matching $500 million from SoftBank Group, and this month signed 17 leases for about eight gigawatts of capacity at SB Energy's planned Ohio campus. SB Energy, in turn, has committed to spend at least $50 million on OpenAI's software through 2028.

SB Energy has not brought a single data center online. Its draft filing reportedly shows nearly nine gigawatts under contract and a backlog exceeding $400 billion, against first-half 2026 revenue of about $140 million from its existing renewables business. Once the IPO closes, OpenAI is expected to hold a single-digit percentage stake in the company whose data centers it is renting.

Nvidia is underwriting much of the buildout. The chipmaker invested $1.5 billion in SB Energy this month and, according to an August 17 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, agreed to cover losses on OpenAI's leases for the first 4.25 gigawatts of the Ohio site, with its exposure capped at $105 billion. The campus will run exclusively on Nvidia hardware.

SB Energy is expected to file its IPO paperwork publicly as soon as this week, with a listing that could come as early as next month and raise between $5 billion and $7 billion.