Anthropic Is Racing OpenAI to Wall Street. The $60 Billion IPO Could Happen by October.
Bloomberg reports Anthropic is eyeing an October IPO that could raise over $60 billion. The AI safety company is about to become the most watched public offering of the year.
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Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is considering going public as early as October 2026, according to Bloomberg. The listing could raise more than $60 billion, making it one of the largest tech IPOs in history. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are reportedly in early discussions as potential underwriters.
This is not just an IPO. This is a referendum on whether "AI safety" can be a business model.
The Bigger Picture
Anthropic and OpenAI are now in a direct race to the public markets. OpenAI has been restructuring from a nonprofit to a for-profit entity and has its own IPO ambitions. But Anthropic has a differentiated pitch: it has positioned itself as the responsible AI company, the one that refused the Pentagon contract, the one that promised Claude would stay ad-free, the one that talks about existential risk while still shipping competitive products.
That narrative is about to be tested by the most unforgiving audience in the world: public market investors. They will not care about Constitutional AI. They will care about revenue growth, margins, and whether Claude can take market share from ChatGPT fast enough to justify a $60 billion valuation.
Our Take
Anthropic going public before OpenAI would be a masterful strategic move. It lets them set the narrative, establish the valuation benchmark, and force OpenAI to play catch-up. The company that spent years positioning itself as the cautious alternative to OpenAI could end up beating them to Wall Street. The irony is delicious.
But here is the risk nobody is talking about: going public means quarterly earnings calls. It means pressure to grow at all costs. It means the safety-first culture that defines Anthropic will face relentless pressure from shareholders who want returns, not research papers. If Anthropic can stay Anthropic after an IPO, it will be the most important proof point for responsible AI in history. If it cannot, it will be the most expensive cautionary tale.
First reported by Bloomberg. Additional reporting from CNBC and The Information.