Google’s Former CEO Quietly Owns 1% of Anthropic
A personal check Eric Schmidt wrote in 2021 may have quietly become one of the most valuable private stakes in artificial intelligence, and the number attached to it grows larger every time Anthropic sets a new valuation.
A check Google’s former chief executive wrote in 2021 may now be one of the most valuable personal stakes in the AI industry. Eric Schmidt owns about 1% of Anthropic, people familiar with the matter said on Monday, October 19, 2026. Neither Schmidt nor Anthropic has confirmed the figure.
The stake dates to a “tens-of-millions-of-dollars investment” in Anthropic’s Series A, when the company was valued at $461 million. At Anthropic’s most recent valuation of $965 billion, the stake could be worth about $10 billion. Nobody outside his circle knows whether he has sold any of it.
Investors in Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG | GOOG Price Prediction, NASDAQ:GOOGL), where Schmidt was CEO, treated the report as a minor development. Shares rose 1.05% to close at $344.18, valuing the company at $4.21 trillion.
What the Report Confirms and What It Leaves Open
Nothing here is signed or filed. The 1% figure comes from unnamed sources, and no public registration statement shows Schmidt’s holdings.
The IPO timeline is also only a plan at this stage. Formal marketing could begin as early as the week of Monday, November 9, with trading possible before Thanksgiving and a year-end listing. The range discussed runs from $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion, matching or exceeding SpaceX’s $1.77 trillion offering in June.
At the top of that range, the stake could reach $20 billion. That would raise Schmidt’s net worth by about a third from $57.5 billion to nearly $80 billion.
Anthropic’s latest valuation is about 2,093 times its Series A price. That increase went to venture funds, insiders and strategic partners before any public investor could buy a share.
Schmidt invests through TomorrowVentures, Innovation Endeavors and the Hillspire family office, and he has also backed Mistral AI, Reflection AI and World Labs. All of those companies are private, so none carry verifiable financials.
Why Anthropic’s Price Matters for Alphabet
Alphabet has its own strategic ties to Anthropic, which competes with Gemini while also using Google Cloud, and Schmidt’s personal stake is a minor governance matter at Alphabet’s scale and sits apart from the company’s revenue and profit.
The listing matters as a pricing event, because a public Anthropic quote would give investors a daily benchmark for advanced AI models. Google Cloud revenue grew 82% to $24.77 billion in the second quarter. The Gemini app has 950 million monthly active users (the power, cooling and networking suppliers behind that expansion are the subject of a free report on seven AI infrastructure stocks that aren’t chipmakers).
A rich Anthropic multiple could make those assets look cheap. Alphabet trades at about 23x forward earnings.
Reality Check on an Unconfirmed Stake
Three inputs remain soft: the stake size, any past sales, and a valuation range that could move before pricing, and every dollar figure attached to Schmidt is a “could be worth” estimate.
A listing this large also draws capital, and funds seeking pure AI exposure may trim megacaps to make room. Alphabet’s spending also carries risk, with second-quarter capex of $44.92 billion and negative free cash flow of $5.86 billion.
Should You Buy or Sell GOOGL Stock
Alphabet gives investors public exposure to AI while Anthropic shares remain unavailable because it is not listed, liquid, or profitable.
The stock has gained 10.18% year to date and 36.23% over the 12 months through October 19, yet it trades below its 52-week high of $408.10. Second-quarter revenue rose 24.2% to $119.80 billion.
Investors who buy Anthropic at its IPO will pay a price set after private investors captured the early gains. The next milestone is Anthropic’s public registration filing. If the offering prices at or above $1.8 trillion by year-end while Alphabet holds above its 200-day moving average of $340.90, the case for an AI rerating at Alphabet is working.
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Omor Ibne Ehsan is a writer at 24/7 Wall St. He is a self-taught investor with a focus on growth, cyclical, and dividend equities that have strong fundamentals, value, and long-term potential. He also has an interest in high-risk, high-reward investments such as penny stocks.
