Asia’s Richest Man Publicly Challenges the World’s Richest Man

Masayoshi Son Pushes Back on Elon Musk’s Space Data Centre Vision

SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son has taken aim at Elon Musk’s idea of building data centres in space, setting up a rare public clash between two of the world’s most influential tech billionaires. Son, who has just returned to the top of Asia’s rich list, made the comments at a shareholder meeting on June 23.

Speaking at the annual meeting of SoftBank’s telecoms subsidiary, Son dismissed Musk’s “space data centre” concept as having little practical value. In his view, the race for artificial intelligence will be won by computing power on Earth, not in orbit.

Son laid out the economics in blunt terms. The main appeal of putting data centres in space is cheaper power, but electricity accounts for only around 7% of the total operating cost of an AI data centre, he said. Any savings on power would be outweighed by the cost of launching equipment into orbit, maintaining it in space and dealing with communications latency.

Asked by a shareholder about SpaceX’s space data centre plans, Son said it would take more than a decade to see real results in space, while the AI race is likely to be decided within roughly the next 10 years.

Despite the criticism, Son still praised Musk as an “outstanding innovator”. But he made clear that SoftBank would focus on building massive ground-based data centre capacity around the world. “The first mover wins,” Son said.

SoftBank Corp president Junichi Miyakawa also told shareholders that space-based operations still face a long list of technical challenges. The company has no plans to take part in such projects in the near term, he said.

Behind the exchange is a much bigger disagreement over the future of AI infrastructure.

Musk’s SpaceX has laid out an ambitious vision for data centres in orbit. The company wants to use Starship to lift million-tonne-scale computing equipment into space, taking advantage of constant solar energy and the cooling conditions of orbit to create what it sees as the lowest-cost source of future computing power. SpaceX views orbital AI computing satellites as its next major growth engine and aims to begin deployment as early as 2028.

Musk has repeatedly said that if SpaceX can send one million tonnes of payload into orbit each year, it could build AI satellites capable of generating 100 gigawatts of solar power annually. He has also argued that reaching one terawatt a year is entirely possible.

Son is betting on a very different path. After being bruised by failed bets such as WeWork, he is now staging a comeback through an all-in push on AI. On May 31, SoftBank announced plans to invest up to 75 billion euros in France to build what would be Europe’s largest AI data centre. In March, Son also proposed an AI data centre project in Ohio, with a planned investment of about $500 billion, billed as the largest single-site investment ever.

SoftBank has also invested more than $64 billion in OpenAI, securing a stake of about 13%. That makes it the company’s second-largest outside investor after Microsoft.