Anthropic & Elon commit to giving shares of their companies to the general public

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We’re committing a portion of Anthropic’s shares to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a new wholly owned entity dedicated entirely to the public benefit.

It will start off with 5% of our shares. For every 50% increase in the company’s value over a set baseline, we can contribute up to an extra 2%, subject to our board’s discretion.

In total, this means that roughly 20% of Anthropic’s shares are committed to the public good. Our co-founders have already pledged to donate 80% of their equity, and around half our employees are donating a portion of their equity as part of a donation matching program we’ve run since our founding.

In the post below, we share more details about our new fund.

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Today, we’re committing a portion of Anthropic’s shares to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a new entity with a structure that increases the stake as the company grows. Subject to stockholder approval, 5% of Anthropic’s shares will be committed today, with an additional 2% added at the board’s discretion for every 50% increase in the company’s value above a set baseline.

As a public benefit corporation, most of our work in pursuit of our mission takes place inside the company: research relevant to AI safety and interpretability; applied biomedical research; discounts on Claude for nonprofits and scientific institutions. These activities have both a public benefit component and for-profit value, so we house them directly in the company.

The Anthropic Public Benefit Fund will have increased flexibility and scale, enabling us to pursue our mission in new ways: for example, we might explore large donations to traditional nonprofits or direct distributions to specific populations.

One example is labor market impacts. AI may generate enormous economic value, but it could also cause instability for many workers. Anthropic has already committed $200 million to studying and addressing this issue, but given the pace of AI progress, bolder approaches may be needed. The Fund will have the versatility to pursue them.

We’re establishing the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund as a wholly-owned LLC—rather than a 501(c)(3) or other format—to give adjustability between different forms of giving. None of the Anthropic equity held by the LLC will be used for lobbying or political giving, in the US or abroad.

Because of the way the Fund is structured, the more Anthropic grows, the larger the share of the company that can be dedicated expressly to the public good. It is common practice for tech companies to offer escalating compensation awards to their executives. We are instead directing that equity to the public benefit.

This builds on commitments our co-founders and employees have already made. When Anthropic was founded, our co-founders pledged to donate 80% of their equity holdings, and since founding we have also operated an equity donation match program that allows employees to pledge equity which Anthropic matches. Approximately half of our employees participate in this program. When combined with today’s announcement, roughly 20% of Anthropic shares will be dedicated to the public good, plus any additional percentage that could be added if the company reaches specific valuation milestones.

In the coming months, we will share more about the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund’s structure and governance, including the valuation milestones that may add to its stake. We will also report on our progress to date against our mission in an upcoming public benefit report.

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