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help Mr. Son spread billions across the tech
world, funding highflying startups such as
Uber Technologies Inc.—and, recently, stum-
bling with a big stake in WeWork. The fund
would expand SoftBank’s already huge foot-
print, which included a telecom empire, a mi-
crochip designer and robot makers.
Mr. Misra’s targets were Nikesh Arora, who
was once heir apparent to Mr. Son as chief ex-
ecutive, and Alok Sama, a deputy to Mr. Arora
who grew to work closely with Mr. Son on big
deals. Mr. Arora left SoftBank in 2016; Mr.
Sama left last April.
“These are old allegations which contain a
series of falsehoods that have been consis-
tently denied,” a spokesman for Mr. Misra
said. “Mr. Misra did not orchestrate a cam-
paign against his former colleagues.”
A SoftBank spokeswoman said, “For several
years, we have investigated a campaign of
falsehoods against SoftBank Group and certain
former employees in an attempt to identify
Please turn to page AIt was a career coup for Rajeev Misra. In
2017, the former banker, who had held a series
of Wall Street jobs, was put in charge of one
of the most formidable investing machines
ever assembled.
His rise to the top of SoftBank Group
Corp.’s $100 billion Vision Fund isn’t a tradi-
tional tale of corporate ladder-climbing. He
succeeded, in part, by striking at two of his
main rivals inside SoftBank with a dark-arts
campaign of personal sabotage.
The tactics included planting negative news
stories about them, concocting a shareholder
campaign to pressure SoftBank to fire them
and even attempting to lure one of them into
a “honey trap” of sexual blackmail, according
to people familiar with the matter and docu-
ments reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
At stake for Mr. Misra was the opportunity
to be the right hand of Japanese billionaire
Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s founder. He wouldBYBRADLEYHOPE ANDJENNYSTRASBURGClassrooms Closed, an Entire City Home Schools
iiiHong Kong students learn online as parents work alongside
Karen Taylor, whose three
children attend an English-lan-
guage international school,
used to send them off in the
morning and return to their
1,100-square-foot apartment to
work remotely as a manager at
a software company. Since
early February, her 5-year-old
and her 10-year-old twins have
been mostly cooped up at
home, attending virtual lessons
that include video meetings
with classmates and teachers.
“I can’t watch every single
one of them all of the time,”
said Ms. Taylor, who has put up
the children’s schedules on the
dining-room wall.
Her husband, Paul Crowe,
Please turn to page AIn Hong Kong, the home of
schools that are the envy of
high-achieving and aspirational
parents everywhere, education
is making a huge shift.
To the dining room.
Concerns about coronavirus
have led to a two-month school
closure for the city’s 800,
students, prompting a crash
course in digital learning.
Instead of calling off lessons,
many schools expect students
to keep up their work online,
sending them assignments to
complete and submit for grad-
ing. Six-year-olds are writing
nonfiction books and toddlers
are having live video interac-BYLUCYCRAYMERtions with nursery-school
teachers.
The academic experiment
has children and their parents,
many of whom also have to
work at home because their of-
fices are closed, crammed into
the same space. It’s a potential
harbinger of what might face
the U.S. if the virus continues
to spread.Teacher’s helperBEIJING—Deepening eco-
nomic damage from China’s
coronavirus epidemic is forc-
ing its leadership to confront
an agonizing decision: when to
ease quarantine restrictions
that are strangling growth,
even as they help contain the
virus’s spread.
Business executives and
some local leaders are becom-
ing more vocal about the need
to streamline rules to reopen
factories and get workers and
supplies moving again in many
parts of the country where ac-
tivity remains at a standstill.
But many local officials fear
doing so could risk a resur-
gence of infections, prolonging
the epidemic and putting their
jobs on the line. Many pri-
vately complain that President
Xi Jinping has put them in an
impossible position, demand-
ing they keep growth on track
while ensuring the virus
doesn’t spread.
Tensions have sharpened in
recent days amid signs that in-
fections may be peaking in Wu-
han, the epidemic’s epicenter,
where confirmed infections
have reached more than 47,
cases, or about 60% of the na-
tional total. While that has
brought hope the epidemic may
be coming under control in
China, it has heaped pressure
on officials to declare victory
and loosen quarantines before
the economic pain worsens.
Wuhan briefly announced
Please turn to page ABYLINGLINGWEIBeijing
Pressed
On Virus
Controls
Oracle is the #
Enterprise Applications vendor inNorth America
based on market share and revenue.oracle.com/applications
IDC Worldwide Semiannual SoftwareTracker, April 2019, results for CY2018.
North America is the USA and Canada. Enterprise Applications refer to
the IDC markets CRM, Engineering, Enterprise Resource Management
(including HCM, Financial, Enterprise Performance Management, Payroll,
Procurement, Order Management, PPM, EAM), SCM, and Production and
Operations Applications.Per IDC’s
latest annual market share results,S
A
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O
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EI N T U I T
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A
P M
SO R A C L ECONTENTS
Business News...... B
Crossword.............. A
Equities....................... B
Heard on Street. B
Intelligent Investor B
Life & Arts....... A11-Markets............. B10-
Opinion.............. A15-
Sports....................... A
Technology............... B
U.S. News............. A2-
Weather................... A
World News. A6-8,s2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved>What’s
News
Trump saidthe risk to
Americans from coronavirus
remains very low, and he
put Pence in charge of fed-
eral response efforts as con-
cerns aboutthe outbreak
grew among lawmakers.A
China’s leadershipis
facing pressure to decide
when to ease quarantine re-
strictions amid deepening
economic damage from the
country’s epidemic.A1, A
The viral outbreakin
Italy is being linked to a
growing number of infec-
tions around Europe.A
Biden and alliesare try-
ing to consolidate centrist
voters behind his candidacy
for the Democratic presi-
dential nomination ahead of
South Carolina’s primary.A
An employee killedfive
people in a shooting at a
Molson Coors facility in Mil-
waukee, then apparently took
his own life, officials said.A
A House panel canceled
a vote on an extension of key
intelligence powers after a
call for broader restrictions on
government surveillance.A
The House passeda bill to
make lynching a federal hate
crime, in a 410-4 vote.A
An appeals court saidthe
Trump administration can
withhold funds from New
York City and seven states
that havedeclared themselves
immigration sanctuaries.A
Modi’s governmentand
ruling party drew sharp crit-
icism from Indian courts and
political rivals over sectarian
violence in New Delhi.A
U.S. pedestrian deaths
rose in 2019 to their high-
est level in 30 years.AT
he chief of SoftBank’s
Vision Fund used a
campaign of sabotage to
undermine two internal ri-
vals, according to people
familiar with the matter
and documents reviewed by
The Wall Street Journal.A
The Dow and S&P 500
erased early gains to end
lower for the fifth consec-
utive session, losing 0.5%
and 0.4%, respectively. The
Nasdaq gained 0.2%.B
Disney’s Bob Chapek,
who has succeed Robert
Iger as chief executive, is
known as a skilled tacti-
cian who is all business.B
Bayer’s chairman, Werner
Wenning, will step down ear-
lier than planned and be suc-
ceeded by Norbert Winkeljo-
hann, the company said.B
Barbara Novick, who led
BlackRock’s lobbying efforts,
is leaving that role and will
become a senior adviser to the
money-management firm.B
Some U.S. firms saythey
could lose as much as half
their annual revenue from
China if the viral epidemic ex-
tends through the summer.A
Amazon sellerswho
built their businesses using
China’s manufacturers are
on the spot as the coronavi-
rus shuts factories there.B
The FTC rejecteda plan
from Peabody and Arch to
combine operations in a ma-
jor coal-production region.B
L Brands tooka nearly
$700 million charge to
write down the value of its
Victoria’s Secret chain.B
The head of Uber’s
food-delivery business is
leaving the company.BBusiness&Finance
World-Wide
CHUNG SUNG-JUN/GETTY IMAGES
Antiseptic solution was sprayed at a market in Seoul on Wednesday as South Korea stepped up efforts to fight the virus.SoftBank Vision Fund Chief
Worked to Sabotage Rivals
Misra aided program of planted stories, shareholder complaints
WASHINGTON—President
Trump said the risk to Ameri-
cans of coronavirus remains
very low and put Vice President
Mike Pence in charge of federal
response efforts. Concern about
the outbreak grew among law-
makers as a U.S. case was diag-
nosed that may have no con-
nection to travel abroad.
On Capitol Hill, party leaders
said they would seek billions of
dollars in emergency spending
beyond the $2.5 billion plan Mr.
Trump has proposed.
“We’re very, very ready for
this, for anything, whether it is
going to be a breakout of larger
proportions or whether or not
we’re at that very low level,”
Mr. Trump said Wednesday atPresident Trump said on Wednesday that he had put Vice
President Mike Pence in charge of the coronavirus response.an hourlong White House brief-
ing, surrounded by administra-
tion health officials and the vice
president. “Because of all we’ve
done, the risk to the American
people remains very low.”
Officials have also discussed
having the Food and Drug Ad-
ministration grant authoriza-
tion to state and local health
labs to design their own coro-
navirus tests without going
through the current regulatory
process, a source of frustration
for public-health officials, peo-
ple familiar with the conversa-
tions said.
In the U.S., 15 locally diag-
nosed cases have been con-
firmed, including a new one
Wednesday in California that
involved a person who didn’t
haveatravelhistorytoanarea
Please turn to page ABYSTEPHANIEARMOUR
ANDANDREWRESTUCCIATrump Defends U.S. Response,
Names Pence to Lead Efforts
Biden’s Allies Push
To Win Over Centrists
Carolina in recent polls.
The former vice president
notched the biggest pre-pri-
mary prize in South Carolina
on Wednesday, winning the
endorsement of Rep. James
Clyburn, the top-ranking black
lawmaker in Congress and the
most influential Democrat in
the state.
Mr. Clyburn invoked his late
wife, Emily Clyburn, who died
in September, and his constit-
uents during his announce-
ment.“IknowJoe.Weknow
Joe. But most importantly, Joe
knows us,” Mr. Clyburn said.
The endorsement comes as
Please turn to page ACHARLESTON, S.C.—Joe Bi-
den and his allies are trying to
consolidate centrist voters be-
hind his candidacy in the final
days before Saturday’s South
Carolina primary, with a key
leader in the state endorsing
him and a super PAC that
backs his bid making a major
push for large donations.
Mr. Biden is running out of
time to turn the presidential
race into a one-on-one battle
with Vermont Sen. Bernie
Sanders, the Democratic front-
runner who ranks a close sec-
ond—to Mr. Biden—in SouthBYKENTHOMASConcerns Grow
Europe girds against
outbreak from Italy........ A
The Middle Seat: An
unsure time to travel... A
Dow, S&P 500 extend
slide to fifth day.............. BCARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS