SoftBank has booked a $3.73 billion loss on power equipment it ordered for AI data centers in the United States and no longer plans to take. The figure is in the financial report SoftBank Group published on November 10, 2026. Four days earlier Elon Musk had written on X that SoftBank was defaulting on its turbine orders. His post had about 2.4 million views when we read it at 11:57 UTC on November 11.
SoftBank’s report tells the story in different words. It never says default and it never says turbine. It says a subsidiary paid $9.48 billion to reserve factory capacity and buy power generation equipment, and then changed its plans. Below is what the report and SoftBank’s earnings slides say, what they leave out, and how much of the claim on X they support.
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SoftBank paid $9.48 billion through September 30, 2026 to reserve factory capacity and buy power equipment for AI data centers in the United States.
Elon Musk wrote on November 6 that SoftBank was defaulting on turbine orders. SoftBank’s November 10 report describes a revised plan and uses neither word.
The loss is $3.73 billion: $2.85 billion of advance payments SoftBank will not get back and $0.88 billion for contracts it changed or settled.
SoftBank may receive rebates of up to $2.1 billion over 10 years on future equipment purchases. It has not put them on its books.
The report names no supplier and gives no capacity. The Wall Street Journal reports the equipment was gas turbines.
§ 01What SoftBank paid, and what it wrote off
The buyer is Silver Bands 7 LLC, a subsidiary in which SoftBank and its second Vision Fund have invested. Starting in the fiscal year that ended in March 2026, it signed agreements to reserve manufacturing capacity and to buy equipment for generating power. SoftBank’s slides give the reason: “Made bridge investments in advance to secure power generation equipment in anticipation of shortages”.
By September 30, 2026 it had paid ¥1,500,886 million, which SoftBank converts to $9.48 billion. The slides split that into $3.9 billion in the last fiscal year and $5.6 billion in the first half of this one.
Then the plan changed. The report says: “SB7 revised its equipment procurement strategy given the evolving requirements of its existing and planned projects”.
| Item | Amount ($ billion) |
|---|---|
| Paid through September 30, 2026 | 9.48 |
| Still allocated to projects | 6.6 |
| Advance payments written off | 2.85 |
| Loss on changed and settled contracts | 0.88 |
| Possible rebates over 10 years, not booked | 2.1 |
The loss has two parts.
| Part of the loss | Yen (millions) | US dollars (billions) |
|---|---|---|
| Non-refundable advance payments | 457,030 | 2.85 |
| Contract modifications and settlements | 140,218 | 0.88 |
| Total | 597,248 | 3.73 |
The first part is money already paid. The report describes it as “non-refundable advance payments made to secure manufacturing capacity and purchase equipment”.
SoftBank’s accounting slides say those payments were for purchases “no longer in the revised procurement plans”.
The second part, $0.88 billion, covers contracts that were changed or settled. The accounting slides say the cash for it is expected from the October to December quarter onward.
So about 30% of everything paid was written off, and the whole loss equals 39% of what was paid. Those two percentages are our arithmetic on SoftBank’s figures.
The other $6.6 billion stays in the plan. The slides say the remaining equipment “will be used for PORTS-Pike power generation project and others”.
PORTS-Pike is a technology campus in Pike County, Ohio. One slide adds a line about it: “The $3.7B loss is completely unrelated to PORTS-Pike”.
§ 02The rebates SoftBank did not count
SoftBank got something in return. The report says SB7 became entitled to “rebates of up to $2.1 billion over the next 10 years on future equipment purchases, subject to certain conditions”.
SoftBank did not record those rebates as an asset, because the amount could not be determined on September 30. If every dollar of rebate arrived, the cost would fall to about $1.6 billion. To collect, SoftBank has to buy more equipment. The conditions are not published.
§ 03What Musk said, and what the report supports
On November 6, replying to another user, Musk wrote: “SoftBank is defaulting on their turbine orders”.
He gave no detail and no source. Four days later SoftBank’s own report confirmed the core of it.
- Supported by the report: SoftBank dropped equipment it had reserved, lost advance payments, and settled contracts. The cost was $3.73 billion.
- Not in the report: the word default. SoftBank describes a revised plan, payments it will not get back, and settlements. Whether that amounts to a default depends on contracts nobody outside has seen.
- Not in the report: the word turbine. Every time, SoftBank writes “power generation-related equipment”.
- Not in the report: the name of any supplier.
The Wall Street Journal reported at 01:00 UTC on November 11 that the equipment was gas turbines. We could read only the opening of that article, which says Masayoshi Son “placed reservations for a large chunk of the U.S. market for gas power plant turbines”.
Techmeme’s summary of the article puts the reservations at more than 13 gigawatts. We have not found that figure in a SoftBank document.
§ 04Why it matters beyond SoftBank
Power equipment has become one of the slow parts of building AI data centers, and buyers have been ordering years ahead. We covered two other answers to the same problem: Anthropic’s gas generator deal and OpenAI handing power back to the grid during heat waves.
SoftBank’s report puts a price on ordering more than the projects ended up needing: 30 cents of every dollar paid so far.
- SoftBank still expects to finance the rest. Its slide says: “Expect to recoup the investment through project financing”.
- It is not the only write-down in the report. SoftBank also recorded an impairment of ¥72,543 million on a site in Lordstown, Ohio, bought to make equipment for data centers.
- The half-year ended in a loss. SoftBank reported a net loss attributable to its owners of ¥768.0 billion for the six months, and the equipment loss is its largest single named item under other losses.
§ 05What is not known
- The suppliers. The report names none.
- How much capacity was reserved and how much was dropped. SoftBank gives money, not megawatts.
- The conditions on the rebates.
- Which projects changed. The report says only that requirements evolved.
- Whether more could follow. $6.6 billion of advance payments is still on the books.
§ 06Our conflict, declared
CellCog runs on Anthropic’s Claude models (Claude Opus 5.5 on most tiers; Claude Fable 5.2 on Agent Max and Creative Max since November 11, 2026). We own no data centers and buy no power equipment. The cost of AI infrastructure reaches us only through the price of the models we use. Every figure here comes from SoftBank’s documents, read on November 11, 2026.
§ 07Sources
- SoftBank Group, Consolidated Financial Report for the six-month period ended September 30, 2026, November 10, 2026
- SoftBank Group, earnings results presentation, November 10, 2026
- SoftBank Group, investor briefing, accounting, November 2026
- SoftBank Group, presentations page
- Elon Musk, post on X, November 6, 2026
- The Wall Street Journal, Masayoshi Son’s Huge Bet on Electrical Turbines Backfires, November 11, 2026 (opening paragraph only)
Q1How much did SoftBank lose on turbines?
SoftBank’s report for the six months to September 30, 2026 records a loss of ¥597,248 million, or $3.73 billion, on power generation equipment for AI data centers in the United States. The report does not use the word turbine.
Q2Did SoftBank default on its turbine orders?
Elon Musk wrote that on November 6, 2026. SoftBank’s report, published November 10, describes a revised procurement plan, $2.85 billion of non-refundable advance payments written off, and $0.88 billion for contract modifications and settlements. It does not use the word default.
Q3How much did SoftBank pay for the equipment in total?
A subsidiary called Silver Bands 7 paid ¥1,500,886 million, or $9.48 billion, from the last fiscal year through September 30, 2026. SoftBank says $6.6 billion of that is still allocated to projects.
Q4What are the $2.1 billion rebates?
SoftBank says its subsidiary became entitled to rebates of up to $2.1 billion over the next 10 years on future equipment purchases, subject to conditions. It did not record them as an asset because the amount could not be determined.
Q5Who supplied the equipment?
SoftBank’s report and slides name no supplier and give no capacity figure. The Wall Street Journal reported on November 11, 2026 that the equipment was gas turbines.