The head of SoftBank's $100 billion Vision Fund reportedly tried to lure another company executive into a sexual 'honey trap' to collect blackmail and secure his rise to CEO
- Rajeev Misra, the head of SoftBank's $100 billion Vision Fund, is accused of overseeing a plan to lure SoftBank's then-president into a "honey trap" to blackmail him with compromising sexual photos, according to a new report by The Wall Street Journal.
- The Journal report said Misra had a "dark-arts campaign" to sabotage two other SoftBank executives in the years leading up to his promotion to CEO of SoftBank's investing arm in 2017.
- Under Misra's leadership, the Vision Fund has poured billions into startups such as Uber and WeWork.
- Misra and SoftBank denied the accuracy of The Wall Street Journal's reporting.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Before Rajeev Misra was appointed head SoftBank's Vision Fund in 2017, he engaged in a yearslong campaign to sabotage other executives that stood in the way of his rise to power, according to a new bombshell report by The Wall Street Journal.
In his capacity as CEO of SoftBank's investments arm, Misra has steered billions of dollars in venture-capital funding into startups like Uber, WeWork, Zume, and Oyo. Before he assumed the position, Misra spent more than two decades on Wall Street as a banker.
The Journal, which cited unnamed people "familiar with internal dynamics" at SoftBank and financial documents, reported that Misra recruited businessmen to leak negative stories about the other executives to the press, orchestrate a shareholder push to fire them, and try to trick one executive into a "honey trap" to obtain sexually compromising photographs to blackmail him.
SoftBank and Misra denied the accuracy of the report, saying that Misra did not orchestrate any campaign against former colleagues. A SoftBank spokesperson reiterated that stance in a statement to Business Insider.
"For several years, we have investigated a campaign of falsehoods against SoftBank Group and certain former employees in an attempt to identify those behind it. SoftBank will be reviewing the inferences made by the Wall Street Journal," the spokesperson said.
The report described a particularly scandalous episode in 2015. The Journal reported that sources alleged Misra recruited an intermediary to attempt to orchestrate a "honey trap" against Nikesh Arora, then the president of SoftBank. According to the report, Misra's alleged collaborator tried to trick Arora into returning to a Tokyo hotel room with one or more women, where hidden cameras would have captured compromising photos to be used as blackmail.
The scheme failed when Arora didn't go to the hotel room, The Journal said.
Read the full report on Misra's rise to power at SoftBank here.
