Bull and bear case for Anthropic's IPO
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Anthropic already was going to be the defining IPO story for Q4, but now takes on greater significance as other companies postpone or scrap their offerings due to "market conditions."
The big question: Will the Claude maker go public before Thanksgiving, or follow the crowd (and OpenAI) into the "wait 'til next year" wilderness?
Behind the scenes: I'm not hearing anything different than earlier in the month, but it's still worth a quick look at the debate.
The bull case: The AI industry is weathering the PR storm better than it could have hoped, and Anthropic really needs the money at a time when it could have the capital-markets stage to itself.
- Stock prices continue to rise, despite "alignment" becoming a kitchen-table term and increased talk of slowing new model releases.
- SpaceX, which is both an Anthropic rival and vendor, is up for the month. So are Nvidia, Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, etc. Not huge gains, but even treading water is notable in a tsunami.
- Speaking of SpaceX, a quick reminder that it first shocked everyone with massive losses and then went out to raise the largest IPO ever.
Also: Anthropic could keep tapping the private markets — like OpenAI reportedly plans to do — but more structure often means more problems. An IPO creates a public currency and puts pressure on its key competitor. Plus, Anthropic sincerely believes that safety is enhanced via the transparency of being a public company.
- Finally, some of Anthropic's regulatory risk was diluted by Tuesday's dog-and-pony show at the White House. It might be a small window. Get public while the politics are palatable.
The bear case: Wall Street might choke on the losses, and you only get one chance to make a first impression.
- Reuters recently reported that Anthropic booked $42 billion of red ink in 2025, which managed to make SpaceX look like a bit player.
- Yes, most of that is tied to stock-related accounting charges, but there's some thought that the leak was designed to prepare everyone's stomach for even more galling 2026 losses.
Also: Anthropic leadership has mission muddle that other frontier labs don't seem to share, at least not as loudly. The company's bankers must ensure that CEO Dario Amodei can clean that up before the roadshow, let alone earnings calls.
- Then there's the frantic game of model hopscotch between Anthropic and OpenAI. At this very moment, Anthropic seems to be slightly behind.
- Finally, the broader trend of IPO postponements could give Anthropic some cover for pacing its financial frontier — particularly if it believes the numbers could look better if it waits, and that the $2 trillion valuation was too aggressive.
The bottom line: Anthropic needs to do a financing event. The only question is what kind.
