Anthropic files for IPO — Claude maker races OpenAI and SpaceX to Wall Street

Anthropic, the company behind the large language models known as Claude, has confidentially filed to go public, it announced in a blog post. This sets up a race to Wall Street, as SpaceX (which now owns xAI) and OpenAI are also making moves to raise capital from retail investors.

The company filed a Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, but there's very little information. The company has yet to set a price target or the number of shares it would sell.

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Beyond raising funds from a larger number of investors, going public could allow some of Anthropic's employees to sell equity they have earned during their tenure, increasing the fortunes of AI researchers and other employees.

Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI employees including chief executive officer Dario Amodel, has changed tactics, focusing its chatbots and other features on enterprise users, such as its Claude Code feature. It also developed its Mythos model, which it hasn't released widely and has used with partners to help discover and close security vulnerabilities.

Just last week, Anthropic surpassed OpenAI to become the most valuable AI startup, nearing a $1 trillion valuation.

But of the AI companies, Anthropic has also been the one to suggest that caution needs to be exercised around its technologies. That came to a head this year when the Trump Administration wanted the AI lab to remove guardrails. When Anthropic refused, the Pentagon deemed the company a supply chain risk, though Amodei has been to the White House to discuss Mythos.

If Anthropic does go public, it's likely to be one of the biggest IPO's ever. And if it goes public at the same time as SpaceX and OpenAI, it could make a lot of the companies' employees very wealthy.