SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son steps down from Alibaba’s board, weeks after Jack Ma quit Japanese firm’s board

SoftBank Group Corp. founder Masayoshi Son said he has departed the board of Chinese e-commerce titan Alibaba Group Holding as of Thursday, saying he is “graduating” from his most successful investment by far.

The billionaire told shareholders in Tokyo he is leaving just as Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma himself quits SoftBank’s board, but that didn’t signify any disagreements between the two billionaires. Alibaba, in which SoftBank invested early on and is now worth roughly US$600 billion, remains the crown jewel of the Japanese company’s portfolio, Son emphasised.

“We would like to give our sincere thanks to Masayoshi Son, who gave Alibaba and our founding team entrepreneurial inspiration over the last 20 years,” said an Alibaba spokesperson on Thursday. “Softbank is our longest-tenured institutional shareholder, and we appreciate their continued support of our company and management team.”

Son began his annual presentation to investors in typical fashion, reaffirming his conviction that a global digital transformation and the advent of artificial intelligence – accelerated during the pandemic – will propel investments from TikTok-owner ByteDance to e-commerce titan Alibaba and British chip designer Arm.

He again said the market was thus underestimating SoftBank’s potential, arguing that the Japanese giant’s shareholder value now stood at US$218 billion – more than double its current market capitalisation.