Anthropic pledges 5% of shares to public benefit fund ahead of November IPO

The pledge

Anthropic said it will commit 5% of its shares to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a limited liability company wholly owned by the company. The plan was announced in a blog post on Sunday, 18 October, and still needs shareholder approval. Anthropic also said the fund could receive a further 2% of its stock each time the company's value rises 50% above a baseline that has not been disclosed, with the board deciding on those additions.

The size of the stake depends on which valuation is used. One estimate puts the initial 5% at around $48bn based on the company's May valuation, while another says it could be worth more than $100bn.

What the fund can do

Anthropic says the fund gives it more room to explore large donations to traditional nonprofits or to make direct distributions to specific populations. The company states that none of the capital held by the fund's LLC will be used for lobbying or political donations, in the United States or abroad. Anthropic has already committed $200m to studying the effects of AI on the labour market, and it wrote that the threat to jobs could require bolder responses.

AI may generate enormous economic value, but it could also cause instability for many workers.

Anthropic also said that about 20% of its shares are now dedicated to the public good, and that its cofounders have pledged to give away 80% of their personal wealth. Around half of the company's staff take part in a programme where they can donate part of their shares, and Anthropic adds an equivalent contribution.

Investors and critics

The announcement arrives as Anthropic prepares for a stock market listing planned for November. At an investor day in San Francisco, management reported third-quarter revenue up 45% on the previous quarter, to $16.8bn. Those figures were good news for the listing, but they reached investors who were already worried about how fast AI infrastructure is being built.

Technology shares were expected to rebound on Monday after investors pulled out of the sector the previous week. Anthropic's structure has also drawn criticism. Elon Musk and David Sacks, an investor and former Trump administration official, have publicly questioned it, and a growing group of critics warns that ad hoc philanthropy could replace tax policy.

Musk's counter-pledge

Musk responded to the Anthropic plan on X, writing that he recommends giving shares directly to the public.

I recommend giving the shares directly to the public,

He added that this is what he will be doing. On Monday, 19 October, he announced that next year he will give one of his SpaceX shares to every child in America, calling it the first of many. At $146 a share, one estimate puts the total value at potentially more than $10bn. The plan could run through Trump Accounts, which Treasury rules now allow billionaires to use to gift shares to American children. SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell had earlier in October announced that more than two million children would receive a SpaceX share. SpaceX shares rose 1% in pre-market trading on Monday, after falling about 9% since the company's June listing on the Nasdaq.