SoftBank is $600M+ underwater on its early-2018 Uber investment as the stock hits an all-time low; because of a CFIUS review, it may not get board seats
Ari Levy / CNBC : Tweets: @gerberkawasaki , @mdudas , @hackapreneur , @dee_bosa , and @mattrosoff Tweets: Ross Gerber / @gerberkawasaki : SoftBank is more than $600 million underwater on Uber as stock hits new low - the “vision” fund. $uber is in trouble. When CA rules drivers are employees. See ya. https://apple.news/... Mike Dudas / @mdudas : “@SoftBank invested $7.65B in @Uber. That stake, when factoring in the $245.3M in shares SoftBank sold in the IPO, is currently worth < $7B... Without positions on the Uber board, SoftBank has limited ability to wield its power and influence.” https://www.cnbc.com/... Justin Wu / @hackapreneur : SoftBank's $7.6 Billion investment in Uber is $600 million underwater. SB invested $7b+ billion UBER now @ $30.70, IPO @ $45 LYFT now @ $45.42 , IPO @ $72 WeWork is next. Softbank invested $4.5b. Going to get REKT. https://www.cnbc.com/... Deirdre Bosa / @dee_bosa : At least it has WeWork.... 🤔 https://twitter.com/... Matt Rosoff / @mattrosoff : Stock prices don't matter when you're thinking in 300-year increments.... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
SoftBank's Uber position was built deliberately: after negotiating with Benchmark in 2017 to buy shares at a $40B-$45B valuation, it closed a $9.3B tender deal in January 2018 and put Rajeev Misra on the board arguing Uber should refocus on its core markets to reach profitability. The bet was priced as a control-adjacent position in a future IPO winner.
That structure is now breaking on both ends. With Uber's stock at an all-time low, the $7.65B stake is worth under $7B even netting out the $245.3M SoftBank sold in the IPO — and a CFIUS review threatens to strip away the board influence the whole deal was designed to buy.
First-order effects
- SoftBank is sitting on a mark-to-market loss of over $600M on its early-2018 stake, with no board seats through which to push the operational turnaround Misra outlined when the deal closed.
- Uber gains a headline problem — a new all-time-low stock price — while keeping a $7B+ shareholder at arm's length if CFIUS blocks the governance rights.
Second-order effects
- The loss feeds directly into the Vision Fund's portfolio-wide pressure: sources reported SoftBank preparing a writedown of at least $5B covering plunges in holdings including WeWork and Uber, alongside struggling bets like Wag and Fair.
- Without board seats, SoftBank's only lever becomes financial rather than operational — setting up pressure to trim or exit the position rather than steward it.
Third-order effects
- If CFIUS denies board seats, the episode establishes that national-security review can convert a sovereign-linked fund's largest governance lever into pure passive exposure — a template other foreign investors must price before writing nine-figure checks into US tech.
- The pattern points toward forced deleveraging across the Vision Fund: coverage later showed SoftBank preparing to sell about one-third of its Uber stake, some 45M shares, to plug a roughly $4B Didi loss — big positions becoming liquidity sources rather than long-term holdings.
The trend: Sovereign-backed mega-funds are learning that billion-dollar tech stakes without governance rights are hostages to public-market pricing and security-review politics, turning flagship investments into forced-seller inventory.