Even at the bottom of the $70 to $80 range Anthropic sent to bankers and then retracted, its IPO would have raised about $60.7 billion, by our arithmetic. That is about 2.1 times the $29.4 billion of Saudi Aramco’s IPO, which Reuters called a record in January 2020, and 70.3% of the $86.25 billion SpaceX raised in June. The range is hypothetical: Anthropic told bankers the pricing details were inaccurate, Reuters reported.
So would it be the biggest IPO ever? On the retracted numbers, no. Even the $69.3 billion top would be 19.6% below SpaceX, as our earlier piece showed. It would rank second in the table below, ahead of the four other listings in it.
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The key insight: At the bottom of the $70 to $80 range Anthropic sent bankers and then retracted, per Reuters, its IPO would raise about $60.7 billion, by our arithmetic: about 2.1 times the $29.4 billion of Saudi Aramco’s IPO, but 70.3% of the $86.25 billion SpaceX raised in June.
We ranked five listings by gross proceeds, counting the underwriters’ extra shares where they were sold. Three figures come from the companies’ SEC filings, by our arithmetic of shares times offer price. Aramco’s and SoftBank Corp’s are Reuters’ dollar figures, used as reported.
SpaceX, June 2026: $86.25 billion. Its final prospectus offered 555,555,555 Class A shares at $135.00, a total of $74,999,999,925. Its second-quarter 10-Q says it sold 638,888,888 shares, “including the full exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment option”. The full count is covered in our SpaceX comparison.
Saudi Aramco, December 2019 and January 2020: $29.4 billion. Aramco “initially raised a then-record $25.6 billion in its IPO in December by selling 3 billion shares at 32 riyals”, Reuters reported, and an extra 450 million shares under its greenshoe option raised the total to $29.4 billion.
Alibaba, September 2014: $25.0 billion. Its prospectus priced 320,106,100 American depositary shares at $68.00 and gave underwriters an option on 48,015,900 more. Its annual report says Alibaba and selling shareholders sold “an aggregate of 368,122,000 ordinary shares in the form of ADSs”, which at $68.00 is about $25.03 billion, by our arithmetic.
SoftBank Corp, December 2018: $23.5 billion. SoftBank Group was “set to raise 2.65 trillion yen ($23.5 billion) in Japan’s biggest-ever IPO”, Reuters reported, after the telecom unit priced its stock at 1,500 yen and said it would sell all the extra shares set aside for demand.
Visa, March 2008: $19.65 billion. Its prospectus offered 406,000,000 Class A shares at $44.00. Its 10-Q says it issued 446,600,000 shares at that price after the underwriters exercised “their full ten percent over-allotment option”, or about $19.65 billion, by our arithmetic.
Gross IPO proceeds including any underwriters’ option exercised: SpaceX, Alibaba and Visa from their SEC filings (shares times offer price, our arithmetic); Saudi Aramco and SoftBank Corp as reported by Reuters. Anthropic’s bars are hypothetical: 866.7 million shares at the $70 to $80 range in a filing copy it sent bankers and then retracted, per Reuters.
Where Anthropic Would Land
The retracted filing copy showed 866.7 million Class A shares, including about 23.3 million sold by existing holders, according to Reuters. At $70 that is $60.7 billion and at $80 it is $69.3 billion, by our arithmetic. Reuters’ description of the copy does not mention an underwriters’ option, so these are treated as base-offering figures.
Against SpaceX’s base offering of $75.0 billion, before its option, Anthropic’s range would be 80.9% to 92.4%. Against Aramco’s $29.4 billion it would be 2.1 to 2.4 times. The low end alone is $6.2 billion more than Aramco and Alibaba combined, at $54.4 billion; adding SoftBank Corp, at $77.9 billion, takes the three above the top, all by our arithmetic.
Anthropic’s own share of the money would be $59.0 billion to $67.5 billion from about 843.3 million new shares, by our arithmetic. A separate $26 billion private placement of Class N common stock would close after the IPO, per Reuters, and is not counted here; our placement piece covers it.
The Structural Read
As we read the table, the retracted range would put Anthropic second, not first: the size gap to SpaceX is $16.9 billion even at the top, by our arithmetic, while the gap down to Aramco is at least $31.3 billion.
As we read the filings, the comparison depends on what is counted: SpaceX’s total includes its underwriters’ option, and Reuters’ description of the Anthropic copy does not mention one.
Reuters, 10 November 2026
“The IPO would raise $69.3 billion at the top of the range”
Three Implications
FOR IPO BUYERS The range that would set the size is not in any public filing; Anthropic told bankers the pricing details were inaccurate and that it would update the filing, Reuters reported.
FOR THE RECORD BOOKS At $70 to $80 on 866.7 million shares the offering would be 80.9% to 92.4% of SpaceX’s $75.0 billion base offering, before any option, by our arithmetic.
FOR ANTHROPIC’S BALANCE SHEET Its own roughly 843.3 million shares would bring in $59.0 billion to $67.5 billion, by our arithmetic, before a separate $26 billion private placement Reuters reported.
The framework argues: “That is the structural read, and it changes the valuation logic at every layer beneath it.”
As we read it, the same logic reaches the listing itself: the two largest offerings in this table, SpaceX’s and Anthropic’s retracted range, are both 2026 deals, and each is more than twice the 2020 record. The framework predates both filings and does not discuss them.
What Is Not Established
No price range is in any public filing. Anthropic told bankers the pricing details in the copy were inaccurate and that it would update the filing, Reuters reported, and Anthropic declined to comment. When we checked EDGAR at 10:18 UTC on 10 November, the latest filing was the 2 November S-1/A, with the range blank; our piece on the registered amount covers what it does show.
The final size depends on the price, the share count and any option the underwriters are given, none of which is public. Reuters reported that Anthropic was expected to formally launch the roadshow on Tuesday, with pricing the following week, and the planned trading date is in our timetable piece. Dollar figures for Aramco and SoftBank Corp are Reuters’ conversions at the time. The full picture is in our Anthropic IPO map.
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On the range Anthropic sent and then retracted, its IPO would raise about $60.7 billion to $69.3 billion, by our arithmetic: about 2.1 to 2.4 times Aramco’s $29.4 billion, but 70.3% to 80.4% of SpaceX’s $86.25 billion. On those numbers it would be the second-largest IPO in this table, not the largest; the figures that decide it are not yet in a filing.
A note on sourcing. SpaceX, Alibaba and Visa figures are from their prospectuses and later filings on SEC EDGAR. Saudi Aramco’s and SoftBank Corp’s figures are Reuters’ reports of 12 January 2020 and 10 December 2018, in Reuters’ dollar conversions. Anthropic’s share count and range are from Reuters’ report of 10 November 2026 on a filing copy Anthropic sent to bankers and then retracted, read via CNA syndication; Anthropic declined to comment to Reuters. Totals, ratios and percentages are our arithmetic. Anthropic was not contacted for this piece.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
