CNBC traces Anthropic’s path from 2021 research spinout to a November IPO billed as the largest ever, topping record holder SpaceX. CNBC said Dario Amodei, then OpenAI’s research chief, left with sister Daniela Amodei and five senior staff over safety and commercialization. They formed Anthropic as a public benefit corporation to manage transformative AI safely.
While ChatGPT chased consumers, Claude chased enterprise code.
Early cash came before product, per CNBC, with Skype founder Jaan Tallinn backing a $124 million raise and Sam Bankman-Fried leading a Series B in April 2022 at $2 billion, per CNBC. Alphabet and Amazon each put in more than $1 billion over the next year, per CNBC. The enterprise bet paid off as Claude Code and Claude Cowork rode coding demand, passed OpenAI in U.S. business AI spend and lifted Anthropic from a $380 billion valuation in February 2026 to just shy of $1 trillion in May, per CNBC.
The quiet rivalry turned loud this year, per CNBC. Anthropic mocked ChatGPT ads in a Super Bowl spot, CEO Sam Altman shot back that Anthropic served rich people, and the pair didn’t shake hands at the AI India Summit. CNBC also recounted the February standoff when the Pentagon sought unfettered access for all lawful purposes, Anthropic drew lines on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named it a supply chain risk, cutting its contracts.
Its S-1 showed more than $33 billion in revenue in the first nine months, up 1,200% year over year, according to the filing. Anthropic warned investors that models could show unexpected strategic or self-preserving behavior and, without safeguards, pose catastrophic or existential risks, according to the filing. It also flagged heavy debt, almost $900 billion in compute and infrastructure commitments, and slower quarter over quarter growth, according to the filing.
Buyers now discuss a $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion range ahead of formal IPO marketing next week, reported by Bloomberg and not confirmed by Anthropic. That test will set pricing for the next wave, including OpenAI, which confidentially filed in June for a possible 2027 debut, per CNBC. If public investors won’t pay for language models like infrastructure, Anthropic won’t win the template, just the record.
