Letter to Anthropic Re: Planned Initial Public Offering

New York City Comptroller Mark Levine urges Anthropic to pause its planned initial public offering until the company fully and transparently addresses grave AI safety, governance, and development‑pace concerns. Levine, who advises and helps oversee New York City’s pension funds of more than $325 billion, argues that Anthropic’s recent public admissions - that frontier model capabilities may be developing faster than society can understand or control - mean the company should not be distracted by IPO preparations. He notes internal warnings from Anthropic staff about existential risks and reports that the company’s draft S‑1 itself flags catastrophic threats in an unusually long risk section, while a public‑interest agreement with the White House is insufficient by itself.

The letter highlights specific governance risks: Anthropic’s status as a Delaware public benefit corporation with a Long‑Term Benefit Trust and potential founder‑centric control could leave investors and the public with a gap between authority and accountability at a moment of unprecedented risk. Levine cites concrete incident warnings, including projections of rapid botnet harms, and demands detailed disclosures on audits, controls, their intended scope, and timelines - and whether those measures will actually slow capability development as advocated by the company’s leaders. He requests a written response and pressing dialogue, and calls for pausing the IPO until these issues are resolved.