Anthropic's $1.5T IPO Wobbles as AI Selloff Spooks Its Backers

Anthropic's plan to go public at a $1.5 trillion valuation is looking shaky. Three major investors who intend to buy into the offering told The Wall Street Journal the number will likely have to come down, with one floating something closer to $1 trillion. The company filed last month to list on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, targeting the week before Thanksgiving and a raise of up to $100 billion — a figure that could also shrink, with one investor suggesting roughly $80 billion. Another raised the possibility of waiting out the market.

Executives and advisers are set to meet in the coming days to sort through the options, according to the Journal. The rethink follows a brutal Thursday on Wall Street, when investors fretted that Democratic midterm gains could mean tighter rules on data center construction. The S&P 500 closed down 4.4% and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 6.3%, their worst sessions since April 2025, while the Philadelphia semiconductor index sank 12.3% and Nvidia lost 9.2%, NBC News reported. Friday brought a partial bounce: as of 11:21 a.m. ET, the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.4% and Nvidia had climbed 3.4%, per Yahoo Finance.

Politicians are piling on. Democrats are drafting bills to shield consumers from data center-driven electricity bills, mandate independent testing of advanced AI systems and clarify when AI firms can be sued for harm, Reuters reported — long shots with Trump in the White House, but the party also wants closer scrutiny of top AI players including Anthropic. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has called for a national data center moratorium, and Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa has promised to pause data center approvals in a state holding more than a quarter of planned U.S. capacity, CNBC reported.

Analysts see real downside in waiting. A delay is an escalating risk in this environment, tech analyst Richard Windsor told The Telegraph, while PitchBook's Nalin Patel said a postponement would guard against near-term valuation pain and becomes more likely if the correction drags on. Some investors want to see Anthropic's October numbers first. Its annualized revenue run rate topped $80 billion at the end of October, and it held $146.6 billion in cash as of September 30, per the Journal.

Prediction markets are already pricing in doubt. On Polymarket, the odds Anthropic lists by November 20 sat at 43% on Friday, with 71% for a listing before year-end. On Kalshi, the chance it confirms an IPO before December 1 fell 15 points, now at 59%, while before January 1 slipped to 68%. Decrypt Predict traders put the odds of an Anthropic IPO before 2027 at 71%. The valuation under discussion is already a step down from September, when Decrypt reported a leaked draft filing showed Anthropic angling for around $2 trillion.