Anthropic’s $965B valuation creates 7 new AI billionaires worth $16.6B each

The funding round has also dramatically increased the wealth of Anthropic’s seven cofounders. According to Forbes estimates, each founder is now worth about $16.6 billion, more than double what they were worth before the latest investment. 

How Anthropic’s founders compare with OpenAI’s leaders 

Anthropic’s billionaire founders include siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, along with Jack Clark, Sam McCandlish, Chris Olah, Tom Brown and Jared Kaplan. Forbes estimates that each owns slightly more than 1.7% of the company.

However, even with their newfound wealth, Anthropic’s founders are still behind some figures at OpenAI. During OpenAI’s recent legal battle with Elon Musk, OpenAI President Greg Brockman testified that his stake in the company is worth nearly $30 billion. 

Former OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever said his share is worth around $7 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, meanwhile, owns no direct stake in OpenAI. Forbes estimates his net worth at about $3.5 billion, mostly from investments outside the company.

Still far behind tech’s richest names 

While Anthropic’s founders have become some of the wealthiest people in AI, their fortunes remain much smaller than those of Silicon Valley’s biggest names.

Elon Musk is worth an estimated $839.2 billion, while Larry Page has a fortune of $316.9 billion. Sergey Brin’s wealth stands at $292.2 billion, Mark Zuckerberg’s at $217.9 billion and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s at $185.1 billion.

All of them built their companies more than two decades ago and have seen their wealth soar further during the AI boom.

A promise to give most of it away 

Despite their growing fortunes, Anthropic’s founders say they do not intend to keep most of their wealth. Earlier this year, all seven cofounders pledged to donate 80% of their wealth to charitable causes.

“The thing to worry about is a level of wealth concentration that will break society,” Dario Amodei wrote in a January essay that stretched beyond 20,000 words. Based on their current fortunes, that commitment would amount to nearly $93 billion in charitable donations combined. 

Investors continue pouring money into AI 

The company’s valuation has climbed at a breathtaking pace. Just four months ago, Anthropic was valued at $380 billion. A year ago, that figure stood at $61.5 billion. The latest valuation represents more than a fifteen-fold increase in just 12 months. 

The funding also shows the heavy costs involved in building advanced AI systems.

Last week, Elon Musk’s SpaceX revealed in documents tied to its planned public offering that Anthropic has been paying the company about $1.25 billion every month to run its AI models on SpaceX’s Colossus supercomputer. A good chunk of the newly raised $65 billion is expected to go toward covering those massive computing expenses. 

A year packed with headline-making moments 

Anthropic has had a busy first half of the year, with major developments almost every month.

In February, the company launched its coding model Claude Opus 4.6. The release shook software company stocks around the world as investors worried that AI could replace some traditional software tools, wiping billions of dollars from market values. The company also raised $30 billion in February at a valuation of $340 billion. 

In March, Anthropic found itself in a public dispute with the Department of War over how the Pentagon could use its advanced AI models.

Anthropic responded by filing a lawsuit, and a judge later issued an injunction blocking the designation. Then in April, the company introduced Mythos, a powerful AI model designed to identify cybersecurity weaknesses. On Thursday, the company said it plans to expand access to the model in the coming weeks. 

Disclaimer: Wealth estimates are based on Forbes calculations and the founders’ reported ownership stakes in Anthropic. Actual net worth may vary.