Anthropic vaults to a $965 billion valuation with new funding as Claude
demand surges
[May 29, 2026] By
MATT O'BRIEN
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic said Thursday it raised $65
billion in private funding that will push its valuation to $965 billion,
a whopping number that makes the five-year-old maker of the Claude
chatbot one of the world's most valuable startups as it careens toward a
likely Wall Street debut.
The announcement vaults Anthropic ahead of its chief rival, ChatGPT
maker OpenAI, both in market value and in reported revenue. Anthropic
said it's now making annualized revenue of $47 billion from selling its
technology to people and organizations using Claude to write code and do
other work and personal tasks on their behalf.
Anthropic was formed in 2021 by ex-OpenAI leaders and now both AI firms,
along with Elon Musk's rocket and AI company SpaceX, are all expected to
become publicly traded. All three are also still losing more money than
they make, fueling concerns of an AI bubble.
San Francisco-based Anthropic said the new round of funding was led by
investment firms Altimeter Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group,
Greenoaks Capital and Sequoia Capital.
“This funding will help us serve the historic demand we are
experiencing, stay at the research frontier, and bring Claude to more of
the places where work happens,” said a written statement from
Anthropic's chief financial officer, Krishna Rao.
Anthropic also on Thursday launched its newest AI model, called Claude
Opus 4.8, boasting that it is even better at coding and other
professional work than previous models.
Anthropic’s meteoric rise and Claude’s growing popularity have left
OpenAI playing catch-up despite its early lead in making ChatGPT a
household name that sparked a commercial AI boom.
OpenAI last reported in March it was heading toward a $852 billion
valuation after a $122 billion fundraising round. SpaceX was valued at
$800 billion last year, but its value grew to $1.25 trillion after the
space exploration company merged with Musk's xAI in February. Musk
recently announced plans for one of the biggest stock sales ever and
will be able to pitch the offering to investors as soon as next week.
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 OpenAI also cleared a major hurdle
toward its initial public offering ambitions after a federal court
last week dismissed a lawsuit from Musk, an OpenAI co-founder and
early donor, after a weeks-long jury trial over whether the company
had betrayed its original nonprofit mission. Musk has said he plans
to appeal.
Despite its newfound success, Anthropic has also
faced obstacles this year — particularly a bruising legal fight with
President Donald Trump's administration over how AI tools like
Claude can be used in warfare. Trump in February ordered all U.S.
agencies to stop using Claude and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
declared the company a supply chain risk after an unusually public
clash between the Pentagon and CEO Dario Amodei. Anthropic sued in a
dispute that is still working its way through two federal courts.
At the same time, Anthropic has been in talks with the White House
over the cybersecurity capabilities and risks of its most powerful
model, Mythos, which is not yet widely available to the public.
Anthropic also had an influential role at the Vatican ahead of Pope
Leo XIV 's call Monday for robust regulation of AI and for its
developers to work for the common good rather than profit.
The sweeping manifesto called “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent
Humanity), Leo’s first encyclical, repeatedly blasted the
concentration of power and data in the hands of so few people in the
private sector as a danger.
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