Anthropic files for potentially the biggest IPO ever even as CEO warns of risk to humanity from AI
The filing comes weeks after CEO Dario Amodei argued in an essay that the development of the most advanced AI models should slow down.
By Barbara Ortutay and Bernard Condon | The Associated Press ••
A 27-year-old AI researcher says he left Anthropic because he was worried about how powerful AI is being developed. He warned that advanced AI systems could pose catastrophic risks to humanity.
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic filed paperwork on Monday for what could become the biggest stock market launch in history. This comes even as its top executive warns that advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity, meaning it could threaten humanity's survival.
The filing prepares the San Francisco company to start trading its shares on Wall Street next month. It could raise more money than SpaceX did in June, when that company set a record by raising $86 billion in its initial public offering (IPO), the first time its shares were sold to the public. An Anthropic IPO would also mean the company could go public before OpenAI. The two rival AI companies are expected to have two of the biggest stock market launches ever.
Anthropic's CEO, Dario Amodei, argued in an essay just weeks ago that the development of the most advanced AI models should slow down. Yet an IPO could give Anthropic huge amounts of money to grow faster. It is not yet clear how much money the company will raise, what the company will be worth, or what price investors will pay for its shares. But even at lower estimates, the five-year-old startup would become one of the world's most valuable companies. Amodei and his sister and co-founder, Daniela, could also become billions of dollars richer.
The 335-page filing showed that Anthropic's revenue is growing quickly. But, like many technology companies that go public, it is still losing money. Anthropic, which makes the chatbot Claude, reported a net loss of $80.7 billion in the first half of 2026. That was much higher than its $13 billion loss during the same period a year earlier.
Private investors valued Anthropic at $965 billion earlier this year. Reports say its value could rise to $1.5 trillion or perhaps $2 trillion, though its final value has not yet been decided. If valued at $1.5 trillion, Anthropic would rank among the world's most valuable publicly traded companies, alongside Tesla.
Reports say the IPO could raise as much as $100 billion. That would beat the current record, set earlier this year by another company owned by Elon Musk, SpaceX.
Anthropic said in its filing with regulators that its shares will trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the stock symbol "ANT."
Many risks, but a huge potential payoff for the founders
Anthropic said in its filing that it could use some of the money to buy other companies and technology. It could also invest in the computer systems and other equipment it needs to grow and compete with rivals.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former leaders of OpenAI. The two companies are fighting to become the leading AI company, and their leaders, Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, are widely seen as bitter rivals.
They also face many other competitors, including Google, newer startups in the United States and China, and Musk's SpaceX, which also has an AI business. Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX's AI division have all been spending more money than they earn because building AI systems costs so much. This has raised fears that the AI industry could be in a bubble, where company values rise beyond what their businesses can support.
The IPO would help Anthropic cover any shortage of cash. It could also make the company's seven founders extremely wealthy. Together, they own nearly 500 million shares, but the filing does not make clear what share of the company they will own after the IPO.
Forbes estimates that Dario Amodei, 43, and Daniela Amodei, 39, who is Anthropic's president, are each worth $15.5 billion. Forbes ranks them as the 176th and 177th richest people in the world.
The filing also listed many risks for Anthropic, which is based in San Francisco. These include the possibility that it may lose important employees, face problems with government rules, or fail to get enough computing power to run its AI systems.
But the biggest warning was that its AI models could "pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity."
Calls to slow down AI development
The IPO comes as concerns about AI are growing both inside and outside the industry. Reports continue to describe increasingly powerful systems that can solve problems beyond human abilities but might also act on their own and carry out harmful tasks.
In September, Amodei said the AI industry should slow its rapid development so safety measures have time to catch up. He warned that without a slowdown, AI might soon be able to release large groups of AI agents that could take control of the entire internet within six to 12 months.
Amodei shared a plan on his website to introduce more checks on the AI industry. He noted that Anthropic was already carrying out some of these steps itself. But he said other changes would require companies to work together and cooperate with governments around the world, including authoritarian governments.
"I believe that if slowing down bought us even an extra year or two before models reach critical levels of capability, and we used that time to advance alignment, we could greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong," Amodei wrote.
Disputes with the U.S. government
Anthropic has tried to set itself apart from other AI companies by presenting itself as a company that puts safety first. It says AI should be developed responsibly, rather than growing as fast as possible with few safety rules. Some of this approach is linked to its dispute with the U.S. government. The conflict began in February, when President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused Anthropic of putting national security at risk and labeled the company a supply chain risk.
In March, Anthropic sued the Pentagon over the decision to label it a supply chain risk. The company called the government's actions an "unlawful campaign of retaliation" because it had refused to allow unrestricted military use of its technology. The lawsuit made a rare public fight more intense over how AI should be used in war and for mass surveillance.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, agreed to work with the Pentagon just hours after the government penalized Anthropic for its position. Anthropic also filed a separate, narrower lawsuit over another rule the Pentagon is using in its effort to label the company a supply chain risk.
A judge in California ruled in Anthropic's favor in the first case, while a judge in Washington, D.C., sided with the government in the second. Both sides are appealing the decisions.