Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said on a podcast in September that his company's investment in Anthropic — originally a "Plan B" after missing out on OpenAI — could become worth "tens of billions of dollars" upon a public listing. Salesforce has not disclosed the size of its stake.
The public benefit pledges from both Musk and Anthropic arrive as the largest AI and space ventures in the world simultaneously test the public markets' appetite for capital-intensive, loss-making growth stories. Whether the philanthropic gestures translate into durable governance structures or remain one-time allocations tied to listing momentum remains an open question.
Will the public benefit funds promised by Musk and Anthropic establish a new precedent for mega-cap technology listings, or will they dissolve into symbolic gestures once the shares begin trading?
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