The company behind Claude is going public. Who gets the final say?
Why it hits youAI like Claude is already in your homework, your apps and the jobs you're heading for. Going public changes who owns the company and who it has to keep happy.
Anthropic, which makes the AI chatbot Claude, has filed to sell shares on the US stock market, in what could be one of the biggest listings ever. It's a company that says its own technology could be dangerous. So who will be in charge once it's answering to shareholders?
The Facts
What everyone agrees on
Before anyone spins it. Every one of these is checkable.
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On 26 October Anthropic, the company behind Claude, filed to sell shares on Nasdaq, the US stock market, under the name “ANT”. Anthropic ↗
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Going public means selling shares to the public for the first time, so anyone with an investing account can own a tiny slice. The price hasn't been set yet. Anthropic ↗
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Reports say Anthropic is aiming to start trading around late November. Fortune ↗
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When it last raised money from private investors, in May, Anthropic was valued at $965 billion. Anthropic ↗
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Its seven co-founders will keep 50.1% of the votes, and a trust of people with no money in the company picks most of the board. TechCrunch ↗
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In 2025 Anthropic agreed to pay authors $1.5 billion, about $3,000 a book, over pirated books used to train its AI. AP (via Michigan Public) ↗
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Anthropic's own research found no rise in unemployment among workers whose jobs AI can do much of, but signs that hiring of 22 to 25-year-olds into those jobs has slowed. Anthropic research ↗
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Shares will be offered to investors in the UK too, but Anthropic won't be listed on the London stock market. SEC filing (S-1) ↗
Every Side · 1 of 3
Anthropic and its backers
The mission is written into the company
Anthropic says safety isn't just a slogan. By law it must weigh the public good, not only profit. A trust whose members have no money in the company picks most of its board, and the founders keep the majority vote. It points out that in April it held back its most powerful model, Mythos, rather than releasing it to everyone. It has also promised 5% of its shares to a fund for the public good, and its co-founders have pledged to give away 80% of their own shares.
- Anthropic
- CEO Dario Amodei
- Investors
Side labels are our editorial calls for now. How we'll rate lean
Every Side · 2 of 3
The worried
Shareholders want profit. Safety could lose
New York City's top finance official, whose pension funds own a slice of Anthropic, asked the company to “pause the IPO” until it deals with his concerns. TechCrunch notes that people who buy shares will have “little practical control”. Even boss Dario Amodei has said “the pressure to survive economically, while also keeping our values, is just incredible.” Authors were paid $1.5 billion after their books were pirated to train Claude, and music publishers are still suing over song lyrics.
- NYC Comptroller Mark Levine
- TechCrunch
- Authors and music publishers
Side labels are our editorial calls for now. How we'll rate lean
Every Side · 3 of 3
What to watch
The first real look inside, and the real test is later
The filing is the first time outsiders can see how Anthropic actually works. In it, the company warns that advanced AI could “pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity”, and that its legal duty to the public good may clash with making money. It's also fighting the Pentagon, which labelled it a security risk after it refused to let its AI be used for fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. Whether its promises hold up under shareholder pressure is something only time will show.
- Fortune
- Reuters
- Yahoo Finance
Side labels are our editorial calls for now. How we'll rate lean
The Blindspot · what the headlines skip
Buying a share won't buy you a say
Shareholders usually help decide who runs a company. Here, the founders keep the majority vote and an unelected trust picks most of the board. Supporters say that protects the mission. Critics point out that nobody outside the company chose those people.
The Blindspot · what the headlines skip
The “$80 billion loss” headline is mostly paperwork
You'll see scary loss figures. Most of that number is an accounting rule, not money actually spent. That doesn't make it a sure thing, and the company itself warns it may never be reliably profitable. But the headline number alone is misleading.
The Blindspot · what the headlines skip
Big Tech is on every side of the deal
Anthropic runs on computers rented from cloud giants like Amazon and Google. Its own filing says some of them are also its investors, its customers and its rivals, all at once. That's a lot of power in a few hands.
The Blindspot · what the headlines skip
The jobs warning comes from the people selling the tools
Amodei has warned AI could wipe out half of entry-level office jobs within five years. His company profits from the tools that would do it, and its own research says hiring of young people into those jobs may already be slowing.
The Blindspot · what the headlines skip
You use it, but you probably won't own it
Millions of people in the UK use AI like Claude, and many young people's future jobs are exposed to it. But the company is controlled in the US, won't list in London, and there's no word yet on whether ordinary UK savers will easily get a look-in.
Your Call
- Anthropic and its backers: not yet
- The worried: not yet
- What to watch: not yet
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Hero image: File photo: Luca Marfè / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 · Nasdaq MarketSite, New York, June 2015 ↗
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