"SoftBank is in talks to invest $15B to $20B in WeWork for a majority stake"

This is nuts! When's the crash?
To coin purloin a phrase.

From Business Insider:

• SoftBank may make an investment between $15 billion and $20 billion in WeWork, giving it a majority stake in the coworking-space company, according to The Wall Street Journal.
• The discussions are ongoing, and a deal is not guaranteed.
• SoftBank's technology-focused Vision Fund already made a $4.4 billion investment in WeWork last August, giving it a 20% ownership stake in the company.

SoftBank is in discussions about investing $15 billion to $20 billion in WeWork, giving it a majority stake in the coworking-space company, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday.

The deal — a massive investment in a private company even by the dizzying standards of Silicon Valley — would effectively give Japan's SoftBank control of the fast-growing office-sharing company. 

And it would cement the SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son's position as the dominant power in the modern tech economy, with everything from the semiconductors that power smartphones to telecommunications networks in his empire. 

The discussions to invest in WeWork are ongoing, and a deal is not guaranteed, according to the Journal report, which cited anonymous sources. Representatives of SoftBank and WeWork did not immediately return Business Insider's requests for comment.

Billions of dollars and lots of skeptics

It's not clear what valuation SoftBank would give WeWork in the majority-stake deal. Business Insider reported in June that Rajeev Misra, the chief executive of SoftBank's Vision Fund, told a conference that WeWork was seeking to raise new funds at a valuation of $35 billion, up sharply from its 2016 valuation of $20 billion. He did not say whether SoftBank was participating in the round. 

WeWork, which was founded eight years ago, has attracted billions in capital to fund its business fitting up and leasing out building space as shared offices. The company has expanded to 22 countries and is on track to generate more than $2 billion in revenue this year.... 

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Seriously, Mr. Son and SoftBank may have entered the "More money than brains" phase.