General Motors to pay $2.1 billion for SoftBank's stake in Cruise's self-driving unit

General Motors announced on Friday afternoon that it will pay billions for SoftBank's equity ownership position in its majority-owned Cruise driverless vehicle operation. SoftBank Vision Fund 1 originally purchased a minority stake in Cruise in 2018 for $2.25 billion. Its exit comes as the prominent technology investment group was slated to spend the second tranche of around $1.35 billion as part of the arrangement, which GM will now pay, contingent on Cruise's commercial deployment of vehicles. It also comes on the heels of Cruise CEO Dan Ammann's surprise departure. GM CEO and Chair Mary Barra, who also heads Cruise's board, is said to have fired Ammann for strategic differences, including when the business should go public.

SoftBank's exit, according to a GM official, was unrelated to the employee programme. Questions about Softbank's action were sent to the firm.

Much of the buzz and market interest around autonomous cars have faded since SoftBank's first investment, with GM and Cruise skipping a commenced deployment of self-driving vehicles in San Francisco in 2019.


SoftBank, which has been one of the largest investors in pre-IPO companies throughout the world for the previous half-decade, is particularly concerned about the steep drop in tech equities since late 2021. SoftBank will be able to use the money saved from the new GM transaction to invest elsewhere.

While SoftBank recovered from the epidemic thanks to a huge holding in DoorDash, OpenDoor, and other firms that had blockbuster market debuts, the fast drop in technologically advanced shares this year has put the Japanese conglomerate in jeopardy once again.

It is the largest shareholder in Coupang, a South Korean e-commerce site, and Didi, a Chinese ride-hailing app, both of which are down drastically in value. With the IPO market closed indefinitely, SoftBank's liquidity options for many of its multibillion-dollar bets are restricted.

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