SoftBank Wants to Buy America's Biggest Security-Guard Company for $30 Billion, and the Stated Plan Is to Replace Some of the Guards With Robots

Minds, Bodies, and Terawatts · Oct 18, 2026 · 5m · transcript

Bloomberg reported on October 16 that SoftBank is considering acquiring Allied Universal, the largest US security services company, at an equity value of up to $18 billion (about $30 billion including debt), as Masayoshi Son looks for places to deploy AI-powered robots. Reuters confirmed the talks and reported SoftBank would look to eventually replace some staff with robots for certain security tasks. Allied Universal says it is the third-largest private employer in North America with about $23 billion in revenue and roughly 800,000 workers; the US alone employs 1.28 million security guards…