A month ago, Wall Street was talking about a $2 trillion debut for $ANTHROPIC , the company behind the Claude AI assistant. After a sharp selloff in AI stocks on Thursday, a major investor is already citing the $1 trillion mark.
This goes beyond a single company. This initial public offering (IPO) could, for the first time, put a concrete price on the AI “boom” — and suddenly, the market is no longer sure what that price should be.
💸 Estimated valuation keeps falling
For an IPO, major investors need to agree on a price; the thing is, they just watched about $3 trillion evaporate from the S&P 500 in a single session.
According to The Wall Street Journal, three major investors now doubt that the $1.5 trillion mark is achievable. Others question whether Anthropic will be able to begin its investor presentations next week as planned, Reuters reported.
One investor even suggested raising about $80 billion instead of $100 billion. That would put the company below SpaceX’s record $86 billion IPO; so the title of “biggest IPO in history” is no longer assured.
📈 Sales are soaring, but costs even more so
What makes the debate so complex is that the business is, in fact, booming. Last quarter, Anthropic generated nearly $17 billion in revenue—a figure higher than its revenue for the entire first half of the year.
However, investors aren’t paying for current sales; they’re paying for years of future growth, so any slowdown is felt sharply. Quarterly growth fell to about 47%, down from 144% the previous quarter.
At a $1.5 trillion valuation, buyers would be paying about $43 for every dollar of revenue generated over the past year. Between 1980 and 2024, only 14 of 4,110 IPOs exceeded $40 per dollar of revenue.
And then there’s the cost of keeping AI running. Anthropic has disclosed financial commitments totaling $895 billion—largely for computing power—with nearly $450 billion of that amount due by the end of 2030. These costs are largely guaranteed (that is, they are firm obligations), even though the company’s growth isn’t.
🗳 Where the midterm elections come into the picture
That spending will pay off only if the data centers are actually built—which is why the outcome of this week’s elections affects the company so directly.
In an official filing, Anthropic itself warned that opposition to data center construction has become “more organized and coordinated.” In other words, the company told investors that the resource it needs most is becoming increasingly difficult to secure.
A few days later, Texas elected a governor who promised to impose a moratorium on new data centers. The state accounts for about 25% of data center construction in the United States.
👀 Why this could affect your investment portfolio
You don’t need to own a single share to be affected. Thanks to Nasdaq’s “fast-entry” rule, Anthropic could join the Nasdaq-100 just 15 trading days after its stock market debut, becoming part of the portfolios of funds that track the index. The S&P 500, meanwhile, has a much slower process, requiring 12 months of public trading and demonstrated profitability.
The $SPCX shows how quickly enthusiasm can fade. The company ended its first day of trading 19% above its $135 IPO price and, within days, topped $225. About a month after its stock market debut, its value was back near $135.
The final price could also influence the valuation of other AI companies. Some investors reportedly want to see how this plays out before investing in the $OPENAI .
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🔖 In summary
Investors aren’t questioning whether there’s demand for Anthropic’s products. They’re wondering how much it’s worth paying given slowing growth, sky-high costs, and a political battle over data centers. Whatever price is set, it will say as much about the AI boom as it does about Anthropic itself.
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