Anthropic's founders seek 50.1% voting control ahead of IPO

Anthropic’s seven co-founders want to keep control of the company once it goes public. According to The Information, Anthropic is asking shareholders to approve the structure “in the coming days.” The special shares would give Amodei and his co-founders a combined 50.1% of the vote on most corporate matters, as long as at least three of the seven keep a minimum stake.

Super-voting share structures aren’t new — they’re how Mark Zuckerberg kept control of Meta and how Evan Spiegel maintained his hold on Snap. What’s unusual here is the group approach, spreading control across all seven co-founders rather than concentrating it in one person.

The move addresses a structural quirk: the seven co-founders, Amodei included, reportedly own just 2% of the company apiece. They’ve also pledged to give away 80% of their wealth, a commitment Amodei announced in January alongside a warning that AI-driven wealth concentration could destabilize society. The new shares would carry no extra economic value — only voting power — preserving the founders’ control once trading begins.

The proposal has other elements: Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust would still choose most of the board, the founders’ board seats would grow from two to three, and employees would get their own stock to break ties on some issues.

Anthropic, five years old, was valued at $965 billion in May. It was recently valued at $1.5 trillion on the secondary market, and its upcoming IPO is expected to reflect that new valuation.

Why it matters

The structure would let Anthropic’s founders retain effective control despite owning a small fraction of the company — a governance model that public-market investors will have to accept if they want exposure to one of AI’s highest-valued companies.