Masayoshi Son has a message for anyone dreaming of server racks floating in space: come back down to Earth.

The SoftBank founder used his company’s annual shareholder meeting to publicly push back against Elon Musk’s vision of orbital data centers, arguing that the AI arms race will be won by whoever builds the most compute capacity on the ground, not in the sky. His reasoning is blunt. Electricity savings from space-based facilities are minimal compared to the dominant costs of chips, hardware, transport, and latency.

The case against space data centers

SpaceX and Blue Origin have both been exploring the concept of orbital data centers as a way to alleviate Earth-based energy and spatial limitations.

Son isn’t buying it. During the shareholder meeting for SoftBank’s mobile unit, he laid out a straightforward cost analysis. Yes, electricity is a meaningful line item for data centers. But it’s not the biggest one. The real expense is in the silicon: the GPUs, the custom AI accelerators, the networking hardware that makes modern AI training possible.

Son suggested these space solutions could take a decade or more to become viable. His summary of the competitive dynamics was characteristically direct: “He who strikes first wins.”

SoftBank’s terrestrial bet

Son isn’t just criticizing the orbital approach. He’s putting staggering sums of money behind the alternative.

SoftBank has committed to investing hundreds of billions of dollars globally in Earth-based data center infrastructure. That includes a $500 billion pledge tied to AI initiatives in the US alone, encompassing partnerships with OpenAI and the ambitious Project Stargate.

Respect with a side of disagreement

Son described Musk as a “remarkable agent of change,” acknowledging his contributions to electric vehicles, space exploration, and the broader technology landscape, even while publicly disagreeing with his orbital data center vision.