Anthropic files for potentially the biggest IPO ever as CEO warns of risk to humanity from AI

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Anthropic, a major artificial intelligence company, filed papers Monday for what could become the biggest stock market launch ever. At the same time, its top executive is warning that advanced AI could pose an existential threat to humanity, meaning it could put humanity's future at risk.

The filing prepares the San Francisco company to begin trading on Wall Street next month. Its stock sale could be bigger than the SpaceX stock market launch in June, which raised a record $86 billion. Anthropic could also go public before OpenAI, setting up two huge stock market launches by rival AI companies.

The stock sale would give Anthropic a large amount of money to speed up its growth. The amount it will raise is still uncertain because the company's final value and share price have not been set. But even lower estimates would make the five-year-old startup one of the world's most valuable companies. It could also add billions of dollars to the wealth of CEO Dario Amodei and his sister and co-founder, Daniela.

Anthropic's 11-page filing showed that its revenue is growing quickly. It brought in more than $5 billion in the first half of the year, about four times what it earned during the same period last year. But, like many other technology companies preparing to go public, the company behind the Claude chatbot has not yet made a profit.

Despite its losses, Anthropic, which private investors valued at $183 billion earlier this year, reportedly hopes to raise that value to $900 billion or possibly $1 trillion. Its final value has not been decided. At $1 trillion, Anthropic would rank among the world's most valuable publicly traded companies, alongside Tesla.

Reports say the stock sale could raise as much as $100 billion, beating the record set by SpaceX.

In a regulatory filing, Anthropic said it would list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol "ANTH."

The Wall Street debut is planned for a very busy market.

In the filing, the company said it could use some of the money it raises to buy other businesses and technology, as well as invest in the equipment and systems needed to grow and compete with rivals.

Founded in 2021 by former OpenAI leaders, Anthropic is in a race to become the leading AI company. Its two leaders, Amodei and former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, are widely seen as fierce rivals.

But they face plenty of other competitors, including Google, newer startups in the United States and China, and SpaceX, which also has an AI business. Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX's AI division have all been losing more money than they earn because building AI requires huge spending on computing resources. This has raised concerns that the AI industry could be in a bubble.

The need for cash may explain why Anthropic is rushing to enter the stock market this year instead of waiting until next year, as OpenAI plans to do. Another concern is that demand for AI shares could fall sharply or even collapse. Investors have become nervous about the enormous amounts of money AI companies need, and several technology companies have recently dropped their IPO plans.

The IPO would also bring huge wealth to Anthropic's seven founders, including Amodei and his sister. Together, they own nearly 40% of the company's shares, although the filing does not make clear how much of the company they would own after the stock sale.

Dario, 43, and Daniela, 38, who is Anthropic's president, are each worth $6.5 billion, according to Forbes. The magazine ranks them as the world's 405th and 406th richest people.

Anthropic reported a net loss of $3.6 billion in the first half of 2026, although the filing said some expenses were only a small part of that amount. In the same period a year earlier, Anthropic lost $1.3 billion.

Reflecting the dangers of AI, the filing includes some unusual rules. These include giving the two Amodeis and the other five co-founders 60.1% of shareholder voting power through a special class of shares. Anthropic has also appointed independent members who have no financial interest in a so-called Long-Term Benefit Trust. The trust has the power to appoint directors and is designed to help ensure the company does not put financial interests ahead of public safety.

Another unusual part of the filing is its long list of "risk factors." Every public company must explain the risks it faces, but Anthropic's list runs nearly 100 pages and makes for difficult reading.

Among the risks, the company says it might not be able to keep key workers or overcome government rules that block its work. It also warns about the possibility of harmful AI. These dangers include people using AI models to make chemical weapons, governments using the technology to crack down on their citizens, and AI systems acting on their own and creating "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity."

Anthropic and other leading AI companies have talked about the technology's ability to help cure diseases and speed up economic growth. But it could also cause major job losses by reducing the need for human workers.

Stories about AI hacking incidents involving rogue AI agents have also increased fears that the technology could escape human control and carry out dangerous, life-threatening tasks.

In September, Amodei said the AI industry should slow its rapid development to give safety measures time to catch up. Without a slowdown, Amodei warned, AI could create a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet within six to 12 months.

He offered a plan in a post on his website to increase checks on the industry. He said Anthropic was already taking some of these steps on its own. But he said other changes would require companies to work together and cooperate with governments around the world, including governments with authoritarian leaders.

Anthropic has tried to set itself apart from other AI companies by acting as a responsible developer that puts safety first, rather than growing at any cost. Some of this approach comes from the company's dispute with the U.S. government. The dispute began in February, when President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused Anthropic of threatening national security and labeled the company a supply chain risk.

In March, Anthropic used the courts to challenge the Pentagon's supply chain risk designation. The company called it an "unlawful campaign of retaliation" over its refusal to allow unrestricted military use of its technology. The legal fight increased public debate about how AI can be used in warfare and mass surveillance.

Anthropic's CEO made his own deal to work with Pentagon officials after the government punished the company for its position. Anthropic also filed a separate, narrower lawsuit about a different rule the Pentagon is using to try to declare the company a supply chain risk.

A California judge ruled in Anthropic's favor in the first case, and a Washington, D.C., judge sided with the government in the second. Both sides are appealing the decisions.

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Condon reported from New York.

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