Elon Musk has pledged a public share giveaway, following a similar commitment from artificial intelligence company Anthropic as it prepares for a widely anticipated stock market listing. The BBC reported the twin announcements on October 19, noting that Musk's move came after Anthropic said it would create a public benefit fund ahead of its blockbuster initial public offering.
Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI models, has not yet filed a public registration statement. However, a Financial Times Lex column published in September outlined illustrative valuation approaches that ranged from roughly $2 trillion on a near-term revenue multiple to nearly $100 trillion on a scenario tied to AI's contribution to national output. The same column cited an annualized revenue run-rate of approximately $65 billion as of August, while cautioning that unofficial figures of that kind should be handled carefully. Anthropic has not priced, filed, or listed, and every figure in the Lex range is the column's own illustrative arithmetic.
Skepticism about whether Anthropic will reach public markets at all has surfaced from an unexpected quarter. Palantir CEO Alex Karp told CNBC in September that he questions whether an S-1 registration will ever arrive, arguing that a company claiming unlimited downside from frontier AI systems may end up asking the government to absorb that risk — potentially at the cost of about half the business. Karp added that Anthropic and OpenAI are "very different" in his view, directing his doubt specifically at Anthropic's path.