Anthropic has committed 5 percent of its shares — worth around $48 billion at its latest valuation — to a new Public Benefit Fund aimed at tackling AI safety and the harms caused by the technology industry. The pledge, announced Sunday, is subject to shareholder approval.
The shares are valued at roughly $48 billion based on Anthropic’s $965 billion valuation from a May funding round. The company plans to add a further 2 percent of stock for every 50 percent increase in the company’s value above an undisclosed baseline, according to multiple reports on the announcement.
What the Fund Will Do
Anthropic said the fund, structured as a wholly owned limited-liability company, would be able to pursue “bolder approaches” to problems such as AI safety, job losses from AI and the environmental cost of data centers. It “might explore large donations to traditional non-profits or direct distributions to specific populations,” the company said. The firm has already committed $200 million to studying labor-market disruption from AI.
Combined with existing pledges from the company’s co-founders, roughly 20 percent of Anthropic’s shares will be dedicated to public-good purposes, the company said. Elon Musk responded to the announcement by recommending the shares be given directly to the public.
An IPO Looms Over the Pledge
The announcement comes as Anthropic prepares for an initial public offering expected later this year at a valuation of around $2 trillion — potentially the largest IPO in history. The company’s IPO prospectus warned investors that AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity,” devoting dozens of pages to risk factors including models that could “manipulate, blackmail and exhibit other unpredictable behaviours.”
Whether the fund becomes one of the largest pools of money aimed at AI’s side effects will depend on details Anthropic has not yet published: the baseline valuation, who runs it, and how it spends. More detail on the fund’s structure and governance is promised in the coming months.
