Anthropic wants a bigger IPO than SpaceX ever raised

TECH BRIEF

Good morning from Front Research, closing out the week with five numbers that reset how big the AI IPO trade could get: investors briefed the Financial Times that Anthropic is eyeing a $2 trillion valuation for an October IPO that would be the largest ever, OpenAI disclosed its own annualized revenue run rate has topped $40 billion just as it hired Wiz's Dali Rajic as a new chief revenue officer after Denise Dresser's nine-month stint in the role, private equity firm Silver Lake confirmed talks to take Workday private in a deal that sent the stock up nearly 18%, Chinese memory-chip maker CXMT overtook Tencent to become China's most valuable listed company barely three weeks after its Shanghai IPO, and Reddit will join the S&P 500 on August 18 after shares jumped 11% on the news.

• Anthropic investors tell the Financial Times they expect a $2 trillion valuation for an October IPO, which would be the largest public offering ever

• OpenAI's annualized revenue run rate tops $40 billion as it hires Wiz's Dali Rajic as chief revenue officer, replacing Denise Dresser after nine months

• Silver Lake is in talks to take Workday private in a deal near $43 billion, sending shares up nearly 18%

• Chipmaker CXMT overtakes Tencent to become China's most valuable listed company, just 17 days after its Shanghai IPO

• Reddit will join the S&P 500 on August 18, becoming only the second pure-play social media company in the index after Meta

Full writeups follow.

Anthropic Investors Eye a $2 Trillion IPO in October, Which Would Be the Largest Ever

• Anthropic investors expect the AI lab to go public in October at a valuation of $2 trillion or more, which would surpass SpaceX's private valuation and become the largest IPO in history, according to the Financial Times

• Investors told the FT they expect Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate to reach $100 billion to $120 billion by the end of 2026

• The IPO remains under discussion, and Anthropic's senior executives have not set a formal valuation target even in private conversations, sources said

• Anthropic reached a $965 billion valuation in May after a fresh funding round, and venture firms, sovereign wealth funds, and other institutional investors have poured nearly $100 billion into the company so far in 2026

• Why it matters: a $2 trillion debut would make Anthropic's IPO larger than any company has ever raised at listing, testing how far public markets will underwrite the AI infrastructure buildout before revenue catches up to valuation

Anthropic's investors expect the company to list in October at a valuation of $2 trillion or more, according to the Financial Times, a figure that would exceed SpaceX's private valuation and make it the largest initial public offering ever completed. (Fortune, Yahoo Finance)

The projections rest on revenue growth investors expect but that Anthropic itself has not confirmed: an annualized run rate of $100 billion to $120 billion by the end of 2026. Anthropic's senior executives have not set a formal IPO valuation target even in private conversations, and the offering itself remains under discussion rather than locked in, the FT reported. The company last raised money in May at a $965 billion valuation, and investors, including venture firms, sovereign wealth funds, and other institutional backers, have put close to $100 billion into Anthropic so far this year. (PYMNTS)

Why it matters: a $2 trillion valuation would value Anthropic at roughly double what it was worth three months ago, and would make it, on paper, one of the most valuable companies in the world before it has filed a single public earnings report. For investors, the test is whether the projected $100 billion to $120 billion revenue run rate materializes on schedule: Bloomberg separately reported Anthropic's run rate near $47 billion as of May, meaning the company would need to more than double again in seven months to hit the low end of investors' year-end target, a gap that leaves real execution risk baked into the price before shares ever trade. The scale of the number also raises the stakes for OpenAI, Anthropic's closest rival, which is racing toward its own public listing on a similar timeline.

OpenAI's Revenue Run Rate Tops $40 Billion as It Hires a New Sales Chief Ahead of Its IPO

• OpenAI's annualized revenue run rate has surpassed $40 billion, roughly doubling from where it stood at the end of 2025, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing an internal note from co-founder Greg Brockman

• Monthly revenue run rate grew more than 20% in July alone, with growth attributed to ChatGPT subscriptions, a nascent advertising business, the Codex coding agent, and the enterprise-focused ChatGPT Work product

• CFO Sarah Friar had previously said OpenAI closed 2025 with an annualized run rate above $20 billion; Bloomberg noted Anthropic reported a run rate near $47 billion as of May, though accounting differences make direct comparisons imprecise

• The same day, OpenAI named Wiz president and COO Dali Rajic as its new chief revenue officer, replacing Denise Dresser after just nine months, part of a broader shake-up that has also cost the company its COO and its de facto No. 2 executive in the past month

• Why it matters: the revenue acceleration and the sales leadership churn are two sides of the same IPO story: OpenAI is growing fast enough to justify a public listing but is still rebuilding the executive bench investors will expect to see stable before it goes public

OpenAI's annualized revenue run rate surpassed $40 billion, roughly doubling its pace from the end of 2025, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing an internal note from co-founder and president Greg Brockman. Brockman told staff that monthly revenue run rate grew more than 20% in July alone, driven by ChatGPT subscriptions, an early-stage advertising business, the Codex coding agent, and the enterprise-focused ChatGPT Work product. CFO Sarah Friar had previously disclosed that OpenAI closed 2025 with an annualized run rate above $20 billion. (Bloomberg, Investing.com)

The same day, OpenAI announced that Dali Rajic, president and chief operating officer of Google-owned cybersecurity firm Wiz, will become its new chief revenue officer, replacing Denise Dresser after just nine months on the job. Brockman wrote in a blog post that "the way we're deploying this technology is changing rapidly, and Dali will turn what we've learned into repeatable execution." The hire is the latest in a run of executive departures over the past month, following the exits of COO Brad Lightcap and Fidji Simo, the company's CEO of AGI deployment and de facto No. 2 executive. OpenAI has filed confidentially with the SEC ahead of a potential IPO, though the timing remains unclear; the company also completed a $7 billion employee tender offer this week, which some read as a signal the public listing itself may not be imminent. (TechCrunch)

Why it matters: OpenAI's revenue trajectory is one of the clearest data points investors have for underwriting an eventual IPO, and doubling an already massive run rate in under eight months argues the business is scaling into demand rather than plateauing, at least for now. But the pace of executive turnover, three departures from the top ranks in a month, is the kind of instability public-market investors typically discount heavily, particularly in a sales organization tasked with converting technical adoption into durable enterprise revenue ahead of a listing. Set against Anthropic's own reported $2 trillion IPO ambitions on a similar October-adjacent timeline, the two companies are now visibly racing each other to define how public markets will price frontier AI labs, and there is almost no comparable precedent for what multiple that revenue growth deserves.

Silver Lake in Talks to Take Workday Private in a Deal Near $43 Billion

• Private equity firm Silver Lake is in talks to acquire Workday, the human-resources and financial-management software maker, in a deal that would rank among the largest software buyouts ever, Reuters reported Thursday, citing sources

• News of the talks sent Workday shares up nearly 18% Thursday, lifting its market value to roughly $51.1 billion from about $43 billion before the report

• Silver Lake could bring in additional investors to help finance the deal; the firm led last year's roughly $55 billion take-private of Electronic Arts alongside Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Affinity Partners

• Workday shares had fallen about 15% in 2026 before Thursday's news and remained more than 40% below their 2024 peak, as investors questioned the durability of traditional enterprise software against AI-native competitors

• Why it matters: a $40-billion-plus go-private of an established SaaS name signals that private equity sees more value in legacy enterprise software than public markets currently do, particularly for companies caught between AI disruption fears and steady recurring revenue

Silver Lake is in talks to acquire Workday, the Pleasanton, California-based maker of human-resources and financial-management software, in a deal that would rank among the largest software buyouts on record, Reuters reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The talks have been under way for months and there is no guarantee they result in a deal, the sources cautioned. News of the discussions sent Workday shares up almost 18% on the day, closing at $206.45 and lifting its market value to roughly $51.1 billion from about $43 billion beforehand. (Investing.com, Benzinga)

Silver Lake could line up additional investors to help finance a transaction of this size. The firm has recent experience with megadeals of this scale: it led last year's roughly $55 billion take-private of Electronic Arts alongside Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners. Workday shares had fallen about 15% so far in 2026 before Thursday and remained more than 40% below their 2024 peak, as investors weighed whether legacy enterprise software vendors like Workday can defend their positions against AI-native challengers and against customers' own AI-driven efficiency gains. (Yahoo Finance)

Why it matters: a deal of this size would be one of the largest software take-privates ever attempted and a strong statement that private equity sees a mispricing in public markets for durable, recurring-revenue enterprise software, even in a name that has structurally lagged the broader software group for two years. For investors in the space, it raises the question of which other beaten-down SaaS incumbents, companies with sticky enterprise relationships but growth rates that no longer excite public markets, become the next takeout target as buyout funds look past near-term AI disruption fears toward the cash flow underneath.

Chipmaker CXMT Overtakes Tencent to Become China's Most Valuable Company

• CXMT, a Chinese memory-chip maker that debuted on the Shanghai exchange less than three weeks ago, overtook Tencent on Thursday to become the most valuable listed company in China, Bloomberg reported

• CXMT's market capitalization stood at $524 billion even after the stock fell 1.2% Thursday, edging past Tencent, whose valuation slid to roughly $510 billion

• CXMT surged 466% on its first day of trading in Shanghai last month and has continued climbing as investors treat it as a proxy for China's memory-chip and AI self-sufficiency push

• Tencent's slide came after the company disclosed a 176% year-over-year jump in AI capital spending in its second-quarter results; Tencent is itself a CXMT customer, having signed a $3 billion server DRAM supply deal with the chipmaker in June

• Why it matters: investors are now valuing a 17-day-old, AI-linked chip stock above China's dominant social and gaming platform, showing how completely the AI infrastructure trade has reordered China's equity market hierarchy

CXMT, the Chinese memory-chip maker that listed on the Shanghai exchange less than three weeks ago, overtook Tencent Holdings on Thursday to become the most valuable publicly traded company in mainland China and Hong Kong. CXMT's shares fell 1.2% on the day but its market capitalization still stood at $524 billion, edging past Tencent, whose valuation slipped to around $510 billion. CXMT surged 466% on its Shanghai trading debut last month and has kept climbing as investors treat it as the clearest available proxy for China's memory-chip buildout and broader AI self-sufficiency push. (Bloomberg, Tom's Hardware)

Tencent's side of the crossover ties directly into this column's coverage of Tencent's earnings on Thursday: its stock slid further after the company disclosed a 176% year-over-year jump in AI-related capital spending in its second-quarter results, spending that pushed quarterly free cash flow negative. In a detail that underscores how tightly the two companies' fortunes are now linked, Tencent is itself a CXMT customer, having signed a $3 billion server DRAM supply agreement with the chipmaker in June. (Nikkei Asia, Silicon Republic)

Why it matters: the crossover is a vivid illustration of how completely the memory-chip shortage and AI infrastructure buildout have reordered China's equity market, with a company that only started trading 17 days ago now worth more than the country's dominant gaming and social media platform. It also captures the same dynamic playing out globally, memory suppliers capturing outsized value while the companies buying their chips absorb margin pressure, that showed up this week in Google's Pixel 11 pricing and in Tencent's own earnings. For investors, CXMT's valuation is now a real-time gauge of how long the market believes the memory shortage, and the pricing power it hands to chipmakers, will last.

Reddit Joins the S&P 500, Becoming Only the Second Pure-Play Social Media Company in the Index

• S&P Dow Jones Indices announced Thursday that Reddit will join the S&P 500 before markets open on August 18, and Reddit shares jumped as much as 11% in after-hours trading on the news

• Reddit replaces AvalonBay Communities in the index, which is being removed after agreeing to be acquired by Equity Residential

• The addition makes Reddit only the second pure-play social media company in the S&P 500, after Meta Platforms

• Funds that passively track the S&P 500 will need to buy shares to match the index change, a mechanical source of demand that has historically lifted newly added stocks around their inclusion date

• Why it matters: index inclusion forces trillions of dollars in passive capital to own Reddit regardless of valuation, a structural tailwind unrelated to the company's underlying growth or the ongoing debate over how much AI search traffic diversion is eating into its business

S&P Dow Jones Indices said Thursday that Reddit will join the S&P 500 before the market opens on August 18, sending Reddit shares up as much as 11% in after-hours trading. Reddit will replace AvalonBay Communities in the index; AvalonBay is being removed after agreeing to be acquired by Equity Residential. The addition makes Reddit only the second pure-play social media company in the S&P 500, following Meta Platforms. (CNBC, Bloomberg)

Index inclusion carries its own mechanical demand: funds that track the S&P 500, spanning trillions of dollars in passive assets, must now buy Reddit shares to match the benchmark regardless of their own view of the stock, a dynamic that has historically lifted newly added names in the days surrounding their inclusion date. The move comes even as investors continue to debate how much Google's AI-generated search summaries are diverting traffic away from Reddit's forums, a headwind the company has flagged on recent earnings calls. (BeInCrypto)

Why it matters: S&P 500 inclusion is one of the more reliable near-term catalysts in public markets, guaranteeing a wave of forced passive buying independent of fundamentals, and it cements Reddit's arrival as a mainstream large-cap name. For investors, the more durable question sits underneath the index pop: whether Reddit's advertising and content-licensing businesses can keep growing as AI search products increasingly answer user queries directly from Reddit's own data without sending traffic back to the site, the same AI traffic disruption dynamic now showing up across publishers and forums industry-wide.