Anthropic’s IPO filing has revealed the fate of a stake once owned by two of Sam Bankman-Fried’s top executives. The US government sold it for $627 million.
FTX’s creditors got the cash. Nine investors got the shares, worth about $3.94 billion at a $1.5 trillion valuation. Nobody has said who they are.
How Did the US Government End Up Owning Anthropic Stock?
In 2022, Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh bet $50 million on a young AI startup. Ellison ran Alameda Research, FTX’s sister trading firm. Singh was an FTX executive.
Months later, FTX collapsed. Both pleaded guilty and testified against Bankman-Fried, who is serving 25 years.
A court ordered their shares forfeited, meaning handed to the government as proceeds of crime. The US owned them by April 2025.
What Does Anthropic’s IPO Filing Show?
On October 26, Anthropic filed its S-1, the paperwork required before a company sells shares to the public. It never names Ellison or Singh. Instead, it describes 4,453,900 Series B shares in these words.
“…had been forfeited by former holders in legal proceedings to which we were not a party,” an excerpt in the filing reads.
That count matches their $50 million purchase exactly, Business Insider reported.
Anthropic bought the shares from the government in October 2025 at $140.9676 each. It resold them to nine buyers at cost.
Who Got Paid, and Who Got the Upside?
The cash went to the FTX bankruptcy estate, the pot used to repay customers. Court filings show the Justice Department sent it $638 million in late 2025.
“One of the Justice Department’s top priorities is returning forfeited funds to victims through the asset forfeiture program whenever the law allows,” said a spokesperson from the Justice Department.
The estate pays creditors in rounds, among them, a $900 million fifth payout in July.
The nine buyers sit on the other side. Their shares could be worth six times what they paid. The US Marshals Service reportedly ran the sale.
The estate sold Bankman-Fried’s own $500 million stake in 2024 for $1.3 billion.
Anthropic plans to list on Nasdaq as ANT. Once trading starts, the market will price both stakes.
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