Anthropic’s opening bid

TL;DR: Anthropic confidentially filed for an IPO yesterday, jumping ahead of rival OpenAI in the race to go public—but rising Claude costs and a looming SpaceX listing could complicate its big moment.

What happened: Anthropic is fresh off a $65 billion fundraising round that valued the company at $965 billion, making it the most valuable private AI company on the planet. An IPO is expected as early as October. While everyone’s got plenty of takes, here are the three things worth knowing:

1. Anthropic was notably noncommittal in its announcement, hedging that the move “gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review.” It’s a caveat that's both unnecessary and unusual, as companies don't typically leave themselves that kind of public off-ramp when they file.
2. The first-mover advantage is critical for Anthropic in a race against rival OpenAI. Historically, businesses in similar sectors go public in a “cluster,” and those that go later tend to be less successful. Plus, with a SpaceX mega-listing in the mix, the earlier IPOs are likely to gobble up available capital. But moving first only works when the IPO meets expectations—some analysts are reminded of the Lyft-Uber IPO debacle in 2019, when Lyft’s market debut didn’t live up to its hype and its subsequent decline directly impacted Uber’s listing two months later. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, for his part, downplayed the IPO race on CNBC.
3. Anthropic is heading toward a public offering just as companies—its biggest customers—are hitting an AI spending wall. Switching to cheaper models has become more appealing as “some open source LLMs are as good without the price tag,” Mill co-founder Matt Rogers told Axios. Any meaningful corporate pullback could undercut Anthropic’s revenue at the same moment investors are scrutinizing it.

What’s next: Anthropic hasn’t set a valuation yet, though details are expected later this year after SpaceX’s IPO. How much oxygen is left in the room after that listing may determine what Anthropic's public debut actually looks like. —LC

Also at Anthropic…

• It’s expanding access to its powerful cyber Mythos model to 150 new organizations.
• Amazon could hit the jackpot if Anthropic goes public.