Source NDTV
Imagine a car company asking you to invest in its stock, while casually mentioning in the paperwork that its cars might one day take over the planet. That is essentially what just happened on Wall Street.
Anthropic, the massive artificial intelligence company behind the popular Claude chatbot, has officially filed the paperwork to sell its shares to the public for the first time. While this stock market launch—known as an IPO—is set to be one of the biggest in history, a chilling warning buried inside the 335-page document is stealing the spotlight. The company openly tells everyday investors that its own technology could pose severe, even life-threatening dangers to humanity.
What the Warning Actually Says
Whenever a company prepares to join the stock market, the law requires it to list “risk factors”—things that could go wrong and hurt the business. Usually, companies write about normal business headaches like rising costs, tough competition, or losing key workers.
Anthropic’s risk section runs for nearly 100 pages and reads more like a science-fiction thriller. The word “risks” shows up more than 200 times in the filing. Alongside normal business worries, Anthropic warns that without strict safety rules, advanced AI could spin out of human control.
Specifically, the company points out several major dangers:
Dangerous weapons: Bad actors or criminals could use smart AI models to design chemical or biological weapons.
Loss of human control: As AI starts helping scientists build the next generation of even smarter AI, flaws could slip through the cracks until humans can no longer control what the machines do.
Cyberattacks and government abuse: Rogue AI programs could launch massive hacking attacks, or strict rulers could use the technology to spy on and control their citizens.
Eye-Popping Money—and Massive Losses
Despite telling people that its product might one day threaten human survival, Anthropic is expected to attract a mountain of cash.
The company plans to list on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol “ANT”. Experts believe the sale could raise up to $100 billion and value the company at around $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, putting it in the same league as tech giants like Tesla. It also puts Anthropic ahead of its biggest rival, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, which isn’t expected to join the stock market until 2027.
However, building top-tier AI is wildly expensive. In the first six months of 2026 alone, Anthropic brought in $16.2 billion in sales—a huge jump from just over $1 billion a year earlier. At the same time, it reported a staggering $80.7 billion net loss, largely driven by complex financing deals and the massive bill for computer power. The company clearly states in its paperwork that it might never actually turn a profit.
Putting Safety Before Quick Profits
Anthropic was started by former OpenAI researchers, including CEO Dario Amodei, who left their old jobs because they wanted to focus more on AI safety. Because of this, the company is asking everyday stock buyers not to treat their investment as a normal money-making move.
To make sure greedy shareholders can never force the company to cut safety corners for a quick buck, Anthropic set up a unique rulebook. Its seven founders will keep 50.1% of the voting power, and a special independent safety board—whose members have no financial stake in the company—has the power to step in and make sure public safety always comes before profits.
For everyday readers and investors, Anthropic’s pitch boils down to a wild contradiction: AI could either cure major diseases and supercharge the global economy, or it could cause total disaster—and for the price of a share, you can come along for the ride.
