SoftBank Acquires Majority Stake in 1X

The headline figure sounds like a win for 1X - SoftBank is reportedly discussing a majority stake at a $6 billion valuation ^[1][3]. But the more revealing number is what it isn't: roughly 40% below the $10 billion valuation 1X was chasing in a fundraising push last year ^[3]. That round targeted $1 billion and 1X came away with less than half of it ^[3][5], a shortfall that looks like the opening SoftBank needed to negotiate control at a discount rather than simply write another minority check.

The deal is not done. Talks are still ongoing and the terms could change before anything is signed ^[2]. Neither side has confirmed the report - SoftBank declined to comment, 1X did not respond to requests for comment, and Reuters could not independently verify the details ^[2]. That uncertainty matters: a majority-stake acquisition at a lower valuation than a company was hoping for a year earlier is a very different signal than a fresh growth round at a markup, and it suggests 1X's leverage in a capital-intensive hardware race has weakened even as its product has moved toward market.

This would not be SoftBank's first robotics move of the past year. In October 2025, SoftBank agreed to acquire ABB's robotics business for $5.4 billion ^[9][10]- a unit with roughly 7,000 employees that generated $2.3 billion in 2024 sales ^[11]. Chairman Masayoshi Son framed that deal as extending SoftBank's AI strategy beyond models and compute into physical machines, calling Physical AI the company's next frontier ^[9].

A 1X deal would pair that industrial and mobile-robotics base with a consumer-facing humanoid aimed at homes rather than factories ^[7][9]. In separate public remarks captured on video, Son has described a much larger ambition behind these deals - envisioning roughly 100 trillion AI agents in operation and a meaningful share of global GDP shifting to AI-driven labor within about 15 years, with embodied robots as the physical layer of that thesis and a stated goal of making SoftBank and Japan a top player in AI robotics. Read against that backdrop, 1X looks less like a standalone robotics bet and more like a second leg of a roll-up strategy that started with ABB.

1X markets NEO as a consumer-ready humanoid for household chores, priced at $20,000 outright or $499 a month ^[3][8], and the company says it booked its entire first-year production run of 10,000 units within five days of opening pre-orders ^[5]. Demand signals like that are presumably part of what makes 1X attractive to a buyer, even at a reduced valuation.

But the marketing and the underlying technology are not the same thing. In a recorded interview, 1X CEO Bernt Øivind Børnich acknowledged that today's NEO units lean heavily on human teleoperators standing in for full autonomy, rather than operating independently out of the box, and positioned the current release as an early step on an adoption curve he likened to the first computers and smartphones - alongside safety design considerations for homes with children and pets. That gap between the ready-for-your-home pitch and the teleoperated reality behind it is exactly the kind of execution risk a buyer would be underwriting at a multibillion-dollar price tag, whatever the headline valuation ends up being.

1X's NEO occupies a different lane than Tesla's Optimus or Figure AI's robots, which have focused primarily on industrial and factory settings rather than the home ^[5]. That distinction shapes how the SoftBank talks are being read: prediction markets currently give Tesla only about a 3% chance of making Optimus available for purchase or paid preorder by the end of 2026 ^[6], a data point outside commentary has used to frame 1X as further along in commercializing a home humanoid, even without full autonomy yet in place.

SoftBank has circled 1X before - it reportedly considered leading a $75-100 million round back in 2023 ^[7]. OpenAI, an early 1X backer through its Startup Fund ^[8], also explored an outright acquisition of the company last year that ultimately did not close ^[4]. That a $6 billion SoftBank-led buyout is now on the table, after two other well-capitalized suitors passed at different points, says as much about how the humanoid robotics field has shifted from who-wants-in to who-is-willing-to-price-the-risk as it does about 1X itself.