In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the Claude-maker said that it will start with giving away 5% of shares. “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,” the post continues.
Anthropic has announced to donate a portion of the company’s shares to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a new wholly owned entity dedicated entirely to the public benefit.
“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,” the company, led by Dario Amodei said.
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.
“I recommend giving the shares directly to the public,” Musk wrote. “This is what I will be doing,” he said in another post. Elon Musk replied to Anthropic’s announcement recommending shares be distributed directly to the public instead of routed through an intermediary entity. 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.
Here’s the full announcement made by Anthropic “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.