Anthropic control rests with founders and a Long-Term Benefit Trust

A DEV Community report dated October 3, 2026 examined who actually controls Anthropic, the company behind Claude. According to the report, Anthropic is controlled by its founders, Dario and Daniela Amodei, together with an independent trust — not by Amazon or Google, even though both have invested billions of dollars in the company.

The report highlights a structural split between funding and control. A body called the Long-Term Benefit Trust is set to elect a majority of Anthropic's board within four years. Under that arrangement, the investors who supply large amounts of capital do not, in this account, hold control of the company. The report states that Claude is built by Anthropic, and that the company is controlled by the Amodeis along with the trust rather than by either of the two major backers.

The same report notes that Anthropic hit $965B and filed for IPO on June 1, 2026, passing OpenAI. The source does not specify what the $965B figure refers to — valuation, capital raised, or some other measure — so that detail remains unclear in the material available.

As of the October 3 report, the situation stands at that description of the ownership structure: the founders and an independent trust hold control, Amazon and Google have invested at scale without controlling the company, and the Long-Term Benefit Trust is expected to select a board majority within four years. No further changes to that structure are described in the material.