Anthropic's $2 Trillion IPO Race to Beat SpaceX

The headline number is $2 trillion, with bankers telling prospective investors Anthropic could raise more than $100 billion in the offering, which would make it the largest IPO ever, ahead of SpaceX's $1.77 trillion debut ^[1][2]. But there is real disagreement about whether $2 trillion is even the right number. One investor cited by Yahoo Finance argues that Anthropic's roughly 800% annual growth rate would justify a 30-times-revenue multiple - implying a $3 trillion valuation, not $2 trillion ^[3]. Jim Cramer has similarly said the revenue trajectory backs the $2 trillion figure ^[4]. On the other side, Fortune's analysis contends Anthropic's underlying business is nowhere near ready for that price tag: hitting a $2 trillion valuation on Amazon-style multiples would require $59-79 billion in annual profit, and Anthropic reportedly isn't net-income positive at all yet ^[5]. Commentary from AI-focused YouTube channels echoes both sides of this split - some panelists frame the $2 trillion figure as a deliberately conservative opening number given projected $100-120 billion in annualized revenue, while other independent commentators point to SpaceX's own volatile post-IPO price swings as a warning sign that a rich valuation doesn't guarantee a stable one. On Reddit, the skepticism runs deeper, with many threads calling the math reminiscent of past valuation bubbles and warning that retail buyers could end up as exit liquidity for early investors.

Perhaps the least-discussed detail in Anthropic's IPO prep is what happens to control once outside shareholders arrive. Dario Amodei owns only about 2 percent of the company he runs, with the seven co-founders reportedly splitting ownership fairly evenly among themselves ^[6]. To make sure the founders don't lose the ability to steer the company after the offering, Anthropic is preparing to grant super-voting shares to Amodei and the other co-founders, on top of a long-term trust structure that already controls who sits on the board of directors ^[6]. In practical terms, that means anyone who buys into the IPO gets economic exposure to Anthropic's growth without a matching say in how the company is run - a structure increasingly common among high-profile tech listings, but one that becomes more consequential the larger the check public investors are being asked to write.

Rather than downplay the growing political and public unease around AI, Anthropic's IPO filing is reportedly set to name that backlash directly: the public's antipathy toward Anthropic's product and the data centers that enable it will be listed as a 'key risk factor' for investors ^[7]. That candor is being paired with harder questions in the room - Anthropic's CFO Krishna Rao has reportedly had to field investor concerns about competitive pressure, margin compression, and the possibility of a data-center buildout slowdown during pre-IPO meetings ^[8]. The timing lines up with a broader current of public skepticism: Reddit commentary on the IPO frequently mocks what it calls a 'circular safety-capital argument' - the idea that Anthropic needs enormous capital to manage AI risks that the capital-fueled buildout itself is creating - though that framing reflects community sentiment and jokes rather than anything confirmed in Anthropic's own filings.

Anthropic isn't the only AI lab racing toward a mega-IPO, and it isn't using its own dedicated team of bankers to do it. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the two lead underwriters on Anthropic's deal, are also reported to be leading OpenAI's competing IPO process at the same time, reportedly requiring separate internal teams and information walls between the two engagements to keep confidential details from crossing over. Anthropic has since added JPMorgan Chase and reportedly Citigroup to round out its banking group ^[9][10]. The optics of two rival labs chasing record-setting valuations through the same handful of banks, within months of each other, and both measuring themselves against SpaceX's $1.77 trillion benchmark, underscores how compressed the AI IPO calendar has become ^[2]. Social chatter around the announcement leaned toward matter-of-fact 'breaking news' framing tinged with astonishment at the sheer scale involved, with the New York Times cited repeatedly as the originating report.