Former Google CEO Schmidt owns 1 percent stake in Anthropic, Bloomberg reports
WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 12: Eric Schmidt (R-MO) walks through the US Capitol on February 12, 2026, in Washington, DC. The Department of Homeland Security will shut down if Congress does not pass a law to fund the agency by Friday. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by Michael M. Santiago / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt owns about 1 percent of Anthropic, according to a Bloomberg News report on Monday. This could make him one of the people who earn the most money from their shares when the AI startup becomes a public company.
- Schmidt invested tens of millions of dollars in Anthropic's Series A funding round, the report said. It cited people who know about the investment. It was not clear whether he had sold any of his shares since then.
- Schmidt's representatives declined to comment. Anthropic did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.
- Anthropic plans to sell shares to the public for the first time through an initial public offering (IPO). The sale is expected to bring large returns to early investors and employees.
- At an investor meeting, some investors discussed valuing Anthropic at about US$1.5 trillion (HK$11.7 trillion). This was lower than earlier expectations of about US$2 trillion, Reuters reported last week.
- In its IPO prospectus, which Reuters saw in September, Anthropic said it believes AI will change the world economy more deeply than industrialization, electricity and the internet did.
- Amazon and Google were among Anthropic's early investors. They invested billions of dollars and provided the cloud computing power needed to develop and run its Claude AI models.
- Schmidt was Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011. He later served as executive chairman of Google's parent company, Alphabet, before leaving the role in January 2018.
Reuters