Former Bloomberg journalist Jack Clark becomes Anthropic co-founder with a $15.5 billion net worth.

Key Points

• A former technology journalist is now a billionaire worth an estimated $15.5 billion.
• Clark's shares as an Anthropic co-founder account for his enormous estimated wealth.
• His experience with AI policy helped him build an unusual career.

In 2016, Jack Clark worked as a journalist at Bloomberg. He wrote about artificial intelligence (AI), interviewing researchers and companies that were building more powerful machines. Ten years later, he has helped build one of the world's most valuable AI companies.

According to Forbes, Clark, who is 37 years old, has an estimated net worth of $15.5 billion. Most of this wealth comes from the shares he owns as a founder of Anthropic. It does not come from money he earned by building AI models himself.

His journey from technology journalist to billionaire shows something unusual about Silicon Valley. Understanding new technology and helping shape government rules about it can be just as valuable as writing computer software.

From writing about AI to joining OpenAI

Clark began his journalism career by reporting on technology for ZDNet and The Register. He joined Bloomberg in 2014.

At that time, AI was not yet widely used or discussed by the general public. Clark chose to focus on it. He wrote about subjects such as neural networks, which are computer systems designed to learn from data, and the growing power of Google and other technology companies.

His Bloomberg author page includes interviews with leading AI researchers. It also includes detailed investigations into how increasingly powerful AI systems could affect society.

In September 2016, Clark left journalism and joined OpenAI. He later became the company's Head of Policy.

His job was not to build neural networks. Instead, he worked on public communications, relationships with governments, security research, and helping government officials understand what new AI systems could do.

Clark is still interested in how AI could affect the economy. Recently, he described Anthropic's possible economic forecasts, including an ambitious prediction that the total value of goods and services produced in the United States each year, known as GDP, could reach $44.4 trillion by 2030.

How a former journalist became worth $15.5 billion

In 2021, Clark helped start Anthropic with six people who had also worked at OpenAI. They included Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei.

Anthropic says its goal is to build advanced AI systems while also studying whether those systems are safe and how they could affect society.

Over the next five years, Anthropic became one of the most valuable privately owned companies in the AI industry.

In May 2026, Anthropic raised $65 billion from investors in a funding round that valued the company at $965 billion. This more than doubled the estimated wealth of its seven co-founders.

Forbes estimates that each co-founder owns slightly more than 1.6% of Anthropic. Based on the company's estimated value, Clark's shares are worth about $15.5 billion.

Anthropic is also considering an initial public offering, or IPO. This would allow people to buy its shares on the stock market for the first time. The company's estimated value continues to attract attention from people outside Anthropic.

However, Clark does not have most of his billions sitting in a bank account. Most of his wealth is tied to the shares he owns in Anthropic. The value of those shares depends on how much investors are willing to pay for them.

This matters because investors are discussing whether Anthropic could really be worth the $2 trillion it is reportedly targeting for a possible IPO.

The former journalist is also helping shape AI policy

Clark is still closely involved in the same AI issues he used to write about as a journalist.

Anthropic also has difficult choices to make about AI safety. Some researchers warn that AI technology is improving so quickly that existing safety measures may not be able to keep up.

At the same time, Anthropic's revenue, or the money it earns from its business, has grown a lot. This has made the company a major business competitor to OpenAI.

Anthropic's growth has also caught the attention of possible investors, including NVIDIA. This shows how quickly the company has become an important part of the worldwide AI industry.