Anthropic IPO moves ahead as Microsoft, Nvidia, Palantir and Booz Allen pull back

Anthropic is still on track to list on the stock market in 2026, according to people cited by Axios, amid growing concerns over AI safety. 

The news comes as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), Palantir (NASDAQ: TLDR), and Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE: BAH) each took steps to distance themselves from the risks associated with frontier models.

Anthropic’s IPO calendar remains unchanged

The concerns over AI safety have not changed the timeline for a public listing, as reports suggest that a 2026 listing is still in view. In fact, Anthropic might view the last 48 hours as enough reason to go public, with the belief that an IPO makes it easier for Anthropic to ensure AI safety through transparency. 

Anthropic, the company behind Claude has chosen to list on Nasdaq in what is expected to be a $2 trillion IPO. That would surpass the $1.77 trillion mark set by SpaceX when it listed in June.

Finances play a major role in why Anthropic is toeing this path. The company informed shareholders that its adjusted operating income will stay positive for a third quarter in a row, with over 80% in gross margins above. 

All of this comes before taking into account the costs of model-training and revenue-sharing costs. It hit $65 billion in revenue in July, and the startup says it has 6,000 customers spending a minimum of $100,000 a year with it. 

OpenAI, on the other hand, is planning towards a 2027 listing.

Microsoft draws a line for its own models 

On Monday, Microsoft released a provisional “Humanist AI Code of Conduct” for its own MAI models, kick-starting a six-week public consultation before it settles on a final version to be used starting from 2027. 

The code of conduct prevents the AI models from assisting with weapons manufacturing, helping with access to hazardous materials, encouraging disordered eating, or creating violent or sexually explicit content.

The proviso is aimed at AI systems that do not like to show how they operate. MAI models “do not communicate in ‘neuralese’ or any form beyond simple human understanding,” the document clearly states, and are prevented from hiding their reasoning or action traces. 

Mustafa Suleyman, who is in charge of Microsoft’s model development, said public opinion informed the priorities: “We got feedback from people that they wanted to see even more explicit commitment to AI always working in the service of people and not trying to replace them.”

Nvidia, Palantir and Booz Allen take a step back

Some of Microsoft’s biggest contemporaries are taking things up a notch by restricting the third-party models they use. Nvidia, Palantir and Booz Allen Hamilton have begun reducing or eliminating their patronage of Anthropic and OpenAI models due to fears that both systems could learn from customer intellectual property. 

Both AI companies have denied training their models on information gotten from enterprise users, even though they retain “some metadata.” Some users have complained that data retention disclaimers are a bit ambiguous.

Microsoft has taken advantage of that uncertainty by promising enterprise users isolated cloud environments and setups that run models on privately managed servers without transferring user data to external providers.

Washington and whistleblowers up the ante

All of this comes days after escalating debate on AI safety. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said on September 12 that the industry must pace frontier models because “building it too fast is reckless,” an opinion supported by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Elon Musk. 

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said his company supports “the research, focus, and deliberate pacing needed to get alignment right.”

Not everyone is in favor of Anthropic going public. White House AI adviser David Sacks called for the IPO to be paused until whistleblower claims can be investigated, after former Anthropic pretraining researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and accused both Anthropic and OpenAI of racing toward self-improving superintelligence. 

Senators Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders have separately pressed for tighter safeguards.

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