WSJ: SoftBank Reserved Gas Turbines Equal to Six Hoover Dams and Took Billions in Losses
Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank reserved enough gas turbines to generate the power of six Hoover Dams. It cost the company billions of dollars in losses.
Context
The report ties SoftBank's AI power bet to billions in losses, a new angle on the same quarter already covered in this deck.
WSJ Business News posted that Masayoshi Son's SoftBank reserved enough gas turbines to generate the power of six Hoover Dams, and that the move cost the company billions of dollars in losses. The linked Wall Street Journal story is titled Masayoshi Son's Huge Bet on Electrical Turbines Backfires. SoftBank's $7 billion quarterly loss, including a charge tied to revised US AI data center plans, is already covered separately in this deck.
Deep dive
WSJ Business News reported that Masayoshi Son's SoftBank reserved enough gas turbines to generate the power of six Hoover Dams, and that this cost the company billions of dollars in losses. The linked Wall Street Journal article is titled Masayoshi Son's Huge Bet on Electrical Turbines Backfires.
The lead post itself does not give a dollar figure beyond billions, and it does not say how many turbines were reserved, when the reservations were made, or how much generating capacity that comparison implies in megawatts. Those details, if they appear, are in the Journal's article rather than in the post.
This is a new angle on SoftBank's AI infrastructure costs, not a second writeup of the earnings headline already in this deck. That earlier story, from Walter Bloomberg posting as DeItaone, reported a $7 billion quarterly loss as AI costs mounted, including a $3.7 billion charge tied to revised US AI data center plans. The Journal post points at the power equipment SoftBank reserved to supply that buildout, and at losses tied to that bet.
The report comes from an official Wall Street Journal business account, not from SoftBank itself. SoftBank has not been used here as the lead on the turbine reservations.
What to expect next
The next check is SoftBank's own earnings materials and any comment from the company on the turbine reservations, their cost, and how they relate to the data center charge already reported.
Watch whether later coverage gives a firm capacity figure or a more precise loss amount than the billions named in the Journal post. Until SoftBank speaks to this point, the six Hoover Dams comparison and the losses remain the Journal's account.