Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt owns a 1% stake in Anthropic ahead of its IPO

Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google $GOOGL, owns about 1% of Anthropic, according to Bloomberg. His ownership could bring him one of the largest personal payouts when the AI startup sells shares to the public.

Schmidt invested tens of millions of dollars in Anthropic's 2021 Series A funding round, according to Bloomberg. It is not clear whether he has sold any of his shares since then. Schmidt's representatives declined to comment, according to Reuters.

According to Bloomberg, Anthropic was worth $461 million when Schmidt, 71, first invested in the company. If the company reaches a value of $2 trillion, his wealth could grow by about one-third, bringing it to just under $80 billion, based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. If the company is valued at $965 billion, the amount of Schmidt's stake would be close to $10 billion. That would add to the $57.5 billion he already owns, according to Bloomberg.

People have different estimates of how much Anthropic could be worth when it first sells shares to the public. Investors said last week that a value between $1.8 trillion and $2 trillion seemed reasonable, according to Bloomberg. Some investors suggested a value close to $1.5 trillion during a meeting. That would be lower than the roughly $2 trillion value expected earlier, according to Reuters.

Anthropic could begin presenting its IPO, or initial public offering, to investors as early as the week of November 9, according to Bloomberg. This schedule could allow the company's shares to start trading before Thanksgiving in the United States. Bloomberg also reported that the company is expected to begin trading on the stock market by the end of the year at the latest.

Alphabet, Amazon $AMZN, Nvidia $NVDA and Microsoft $MSFT are among Anthropic's major investors, according to Bloomberg. Each has invested billions of dollars in the company, which makes the Claude chatbot.

Schmidt was Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011, according to Reuters. He later became executive chairman of Alphabet, Google's parent company, and left that role in January 2018.