Anthropic is reportedly preparing an initial public offering this year at a valuation of roughly $2 trillion, according to The Motley Fool, even as chief executive Dario Amodei publishes an essay warning that artificial intelligence poses “real dangers” and urging rivals to slow the pace of model development, according to CNBC.
Key points
- Anthropic is eyeing an IPO at a reported $2 trillion valuation, which would surpass SpaceX’s $1.77 trillion debut as the largest-ever public listing, according to The Motley Fool.
- Chief executive Dario Amodei published an essay on 12 September 2026 stating “I won’t lie to you. There are real dangers” and proposing a three-step plan to pace AI capability improvements.
- Anthropic has unilaterally committed to the plan’s first step, granting third-party evaluators employee-level access to verify safety practices and report incidents.
- OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Elon Musk publicly endorsed Amodei’s proposal on the day of publication.
- Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned earlier in September, saying the company and OpenAI are “gambling with our lives”.
Anthropic targets $2 trillion IPO valuation
The Motley Fool reports that Anthropic, developer of the Claude frontier model, is on track for a 2026 IPO with share sales that would value the company at approximately $2 trillion. If completed at that level, the offering would exceed the $1.77 trillion valuation at which Space Exploration Technologies went public earlier this year, making it the largest initial public offering in history.
Amodei proposes three-step plan to pace AI development
In an essay published on 12 September, Amodei wrote that pausing or slowing AI development made “little sense” in 2023, when models could not yet act in the real world or show much deception, manipulation, cheating or capacity for cyberattacks. He said that situation has now changed. The essay sets out three steps meant to slow development without “sacrificing commercial advantage or the United States’ lead in AI”. The first step grants third-party evaluators employee-level access to verify safety practices and report incidents. The second encourages leading AI companies in democratic countries to coordinate on common safety standards. The third calls for coordination between democratic and authoritarian governments.
Amodei wrote that pacing “does not mean halting model training or technical progress, but ensuring companies take adequate time to align and safeguard their models, and for third party evaluators to confirm this”. Anthropic has committed unilaterally to the first step, according to the essay. The company has previously positioned itself as more favourable to regulation and more restrictive on deployment than rivals such as OpenAI and Palantir Technologies, The Motley Fool notes.
Industry rivals align on safety concerns
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Elon Musk signalled support for Amodei’s proposal in social media posts on the day of publication, an unusual show of agreement among three fierce competitors. In an interview with Fortune published the same day, Altman said an OpenAI IPO now would be “ill-advised”, pushing one of the most anticipated listings in history to at least 2027. OpenAI chief financial officer Sarah Friar had told employees in August that a listing was likely in 2027, or earlier if the business kept accelerating. CNBC reads the sudden alignment as a sign of how fast worry about AI has travelled from the industry’s margins to its centre, where it now runs up against enormous commercial ambitions.
Researcher resignation underscores internal tension
The essay followed the resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who also worked at OpenAI. Coxon said he quit out of concern that Anthropic and OpenAI are “gambling with our lives” and that the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade”. In 2023, Amodei, Altman and other prominent researchers and executives signed a statement that ranked the risk of extinction from AI with pandemics and nuclear war as a global priority. Amodei emphasised after publication that finding the right speed of development will be paramount, warning that slowing down too much could give autocratic governments an advantage.
OpenAI has ruled out an IPO this year, with Altman telling Fortune that a listing now would be ill-advised amid growing concerns about AI safety.
