Anthropic's $2 trillion IPO faces SpaceX's flat post-listing test

The last record-setting IPO has returned roughly zero to its buyers in two months — a cautionary benchmark for Anthropic's reported $2 trillion listing ambitions.

Anthropic's backers expect an October listing at a $2 trillion valuation, which would surpass SpaceX's June debut as the largest IPO ever — yet the current record holder has returned roughly zero to early buyers in two months.

The Financial Times reported the $2 trillion figure this month, citing the company's investors, while Bloomberg reported Thursday that Anthropic expects to match or beat the size of SpaceX's record raise and could file publicly as soon as the end of this month. Anthropic itself has confirmed far less, filing a confidential draft registration statement on June 1 without setting a valuation, date, exchange, or ticker.

SpaceX sold 555,555,555 shares at $135 apiece on June 11, raising $75 billion at the offer — about $86 billion in all after underwriters exercised their option. The stock ran as high as $225.64, a 67 percent gain from the offer price, then fell as low as $104.83, 22 percent below it. As of this writing, shares trade within a few percent of $135 — about 40 percent below the high and almost exactly where they started.

The business performed the whole time. SpaceX grew second-quarter revenue 92 percent year over year to $7.81 billion, with its AI segment's revenue more than tripling to $2.6 billion. The company signed $14.1 billion of cloud contracts during the quarter, narrowed its net loss to $541 million from $1 billion, and ended June with $47.5 billion in backlog. Yet the stock hasn't moved on net — because the offer price had already charged for the growth. Even today, SpaceX trades at about 57 times revenue, annualizing its second-quarter figure.

A $2 Trillion Ask

Anthropic's math could work out better. If revenue lands where its backers project, a $2 trillion valuation would be about 18 times the annualized revenue they expect by December — a lower price against hoped-for sales than SpaceX commanded. But it still assumes annualized revenue grows another 50 percent or more from the $65 billion run rate the company reported for late July, and it prices that assumption in before the company has reported a single quarter in public.

The company's growth is real. Preliminary figures shared with prospective investors put second-quarter revenue above $11.5 billion, more than double the first quarter's $4.73 billion, according to documents seen by Bloomberg News. That's up 1,361 percent from $787 million a year earlier. Investors who spoke to the Financial Times expect annualized revenue of $100 billion to $120 billion by the end of the year. Between 75 and 85 percent of that revenue comes from enterprise API calls, with Claude Code embedded in developer workflows — a contrast with OpenAI's consumer-heavy subscription base, where ChatGPT's 200 million weekly active users generate about 65 percent of revenue.

Profitability remains a question. Anthropic recorded a $42 billion net loss in 2025, compared with roughly $8.3 billion the previous year, though its adjusted operating profit turned positive in the second quarter. The company has also signed an agreement with SpaceX for computing resources that could be worth tens of billions of dollars over the next three years.

Days before filing, Anthropic raised $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation — meaning its backers are now discussing a price about double what they paid in late May. Worth noting: according to the same reporting, Anthropic's own senior executives haven't fixed a valuation target, even privately. The $2 trillion figure belongs to the investors, not the company. The company is also considering super-voting shares that could give CEO Dario Amodei and co-founders greater control; Amodei owns about 2 percent of Anthropic. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Citi are reportedly working on the offering.

The Sellers Set the Record

Of course, SpaceX's two months prove nothing about the next two years, and a business that keeps doubling can outgrow any starting price eventually. But the two-month record is worth taking at face value. The largest IPO ever delivered a 67 percent surge, a 53 percent collapse from that peak, and, for the investor who simply bought and held from the start, a return of about zero — all while the business nearly doubled its revenue year over year. A record-setting price means the growth is charged upfront. Two months in, that is exactly how it has traded.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.