Anthropic Pledges 5% Stake to New Public Benefit Fund

Anthropic is carving out a slice of its future wealth for what it calls the "public good," the Wall Street Journal reports. The AI company says it will place 5% of its shares into a new public benefit fund that can funnel money to charities or even directly to selected groups of people—and that share could grow if Anthropic's valuation rises above a set threshold. Per Reuters, at the discretion of the board, the fund would receive another 2% of Anthropic's shares per each 50% increase in the company's value above that threshold, though the threshold has not been disclosed.

The fund will sit inside a wholly owned LLC, not a traditional nonprofit, and the company says it won't finance lobbying or political donations. Combined with earlier pledges by founders and staff, about 20% of Anthropic's shares are now tagged for public-benefit purposes. The move lands as Anthropic readies a blockbuster IPO that could value it around $2 trillion, and as rival OpenAI's nonprofit parent holds a 26% stake in its own for-profit subsidiary. Anthropic says the fund aims to address potential job disruption linked to AI advances, CNBC reports.