Today in tech, we’re discussing Anthropic’s astronomic growth, how a settlement over social media safety dented Meta’s revenue, and Lula’s accusations of interference against Meta.

Anthropic accelerates

Anthropic filed for an initial public offering on the US stock market on Monday, ahead of what it slated to be one of the biggest debuts in financial history. The company withheld a valuation from its filing with US financial regulators, but investors and analysts are valuing the AI firm at north of $1.5tn.

The numbers are jaw-dropping and speak to the speed of the AI boom. Anthropic was founded in 2021. That’s only five years ago, yet already it has grown to a valuation bigger than 98% of the top companies on the US stock market.

Anthropic detailed rapidly rising revenue in the prospectus: $41m in 2023, $386m in 2024, $4.585bn in 2025 (a yearly increase of more than 1,000%), then $16.286bn in the first six months of 2026 alone. The company disclosed that, as of the end of June, it had raised $141.1bn.

Despite the increasing revenue, Anthropic disclosed a net loss of $80bn for the first half of 2026, mostly due to a one-time $72.4bn charge. It lost $36bn the year prior.

Anthropic’s initial public offering will rock the US stock market and probably global markets as well. The infusion of at least a trillion dollars in value is likely to influence investor appetites for every kind of technology stock. That a company of that magnitude can be spun up in five years speaks to the breakneck pace of AI development and financing. Despite calls to slow down from Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, the artificial intelligence industry is still defined by a careening intensity that’s taking the world’s finances along for the ride.

Such rapid growth demonstrates an upside for company founders for now. They can build a business that creates life-changing, globe-spanning wealth in just half a decade.

For the rest of us, the speed of growth spells precarity. Anthropic, a company that could determine the direction of the entire US economy, is going public before a baby born in its founding year has started kindergarten.

Read more: Anthropic reveals rapid revenue gains and larger losses in stock market filing

Meta pays out

Settlements over the safety of social networks are growing so large that Meta is reporting significant drags on its business.

In August, the biggest social media company in the world agreed to a $17bn settlement with dozens of state attorneys general to put claims it had endangered children to rest without admitting guilt.

In a quarterly earnings report last week, issued the same afternoon as a judge ordered the company to pay the state of New Mexico $25bn, Meta reported net income significantly below Wall Street analysts’ expectations because of a payment towards the settlement with attorneys general, this one $9.9bn.

The dent in Meta’s business is a sign that child safety activists are succeeding. In the Los Angeles social media addiction lawsuit that took place earlier this year, lawyers for the plaintiff made it clear they’re intent on making it untenable for Meta to operate the current version of Instagram. They want to render endangering children, which they believe Meta is doing, too expensive to continue. They hope to push the company to the point where business as usual is untenable because of the financial risks of safety.

Activists can’t celebrate yet, though. Despite the hefty payments, Meta still reported a 26% increase in quarterly revenue up to $64.6bn.

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The wider TechScape

• Anthropic’s Claude AI model accessed Georgia voter data in US

• The datacentre next door: on the frontline of tech’s latest David v Goliath battle

• Meta plans $95bn stock offering to help cover AI expansion

• iPhone Duo owners report cracks in Apple’s first foldable handset

• Microsoft to reportedly offer buyouts to 60,000 employees in latest cuts

• Ukraine’s military says Starlink satellite connection stable after recent restrictions

• Experts cast doubt on Anthropic report detailing how AI has altered work at the company

• ‘Black October’: cybersecurity experts sound the alarm over new era of AI-enabled hacking