New York City Comptroller Mark Levine is escalating his criticism of Anthropic’s planned IPO, arguing that its governance structure gives founders and an independent trust disproportionate control while limiting shareholder influence over a company developing potentially dangerous AI technology.
"We’re seeing a very worrisome trend of disempowerment to shareholders and all the balance of power tipping towards management," Levine, who among his duties oversees the city’s five public pension funds, told Bloomberg in an interview.
Anthropic’s governance model gives its seven co-founders significant voting power through a Founder LLC, while an independent Long-Term Benefit Trust holds authority to elect and remove a majority of the company’s board. The arrangement is intended to protect the AI developer’s ability to put safety considerations ahead of short-term financial returns.
Under the structure outlined in its IPO filing, Anthropic’s board will determine how to measure the company’s progress toward its public benefit mission. The company also cautioned that it cannot guarantee it will fulfill that purpose or deliver the anticipated benefits of operating as a public benefit corporation.
The comments come as Levine called for Anthropic to delay its IPO, arguing that the company should prioritize safety measures and greater transparency before pursuing an IPO that could value it at approximately $2 trillion.
In a Sept. 12 essay, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned that AI capabilities could outpace society’s ability to control them and called for slowing the pace of development. Those concerns are also reflected in Anthropic’s draft IPO filing, which reportedly warns that advanced AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity."
Anthropic’s S-1 devotes nearly 100 pages to risk factors, substantially more than the roughly 64 pages describing its business.
Following the letter, the comptroller said he was in talks with Amodei, but did not reveal further information regarding the conversations.
SpaceX IPO Provides A Warning For Anthropic
SpaceX’s IPO raised similar concerns over its governance structure. Before the offering, Levine and other institutional investors objected to provisions expected to leave Elon Musk with approximately 79% of the voting power, despite holding about 42% of the equity. Musk also serves as CEO, chief technology officer and board chairman.
Although giving founders significant control has long been common among technology startups, Levine said the governance arrangements at SpaceX and Anthropic represent a more pronounced shift.
"But what we saw in SpaceX, and now what we’re seeing in Anthropic, really, it’s at a whole new level," Levine told Bloomberg.
Despite his reservations, Levine said New York City’s pension funds will likely gain exposure to Anthropic through their index investments, much as they did with SpaceX.