Op-ed urges SEC to block Anthropic's IPO over $895 billion in commitments

In an opinion piece published on Nov 2, 2026 by Tech Policy Press, Matt Scherer argues that the Securities and Exchange Commission should block Anthropic's stock market debut. Anthropic filed the registration statement for its initial public offering the week before, ahead of a planned November debut. Scherer is identified as co-author of the recent report Brace for Impact: Protecting people and the economy when the AI bubble bursts.

His starting point is a gap between the surface and the footnotes. On the surface, he says, Anthropic's topline figures look impressive for a startup: revenues that appear to have grown quickly over 2026 and a fairly healthy balance sheet, including $96 billion in cash reserves. Underneath, footnotes to the most recent disclosures reveal nearly $900 billion in spending commitments, most of them stretching into the 2030s. The amended registration statement shows at least $582 billion in non-cancelable commitments to just five companies (Amazon, AMD, Broadcom, Google and Microsoft) for the computing power needed to train and run its models. Scherer calls these off-balance-sheet obligations effectively debts in a legal and practical sense: payments Anthropic is contractually required to make whether or not it can afford them. He puts total contractual commitments at $895 billion, says it is unclear how much of the remaining $300 billion or so will land on the balance sheet, and speculates that Anthropic may well end the year with a trillion dollars or more in commitments as it keeps negotiating infrastructure and compute contracts.

He also says the company's 2026 results have not been formally audited, which makes them less reliable, and that third-quarter results suggest revenue growth slowed to a crawl over the summer. Actual revenue figures are not given in the piece.

Scherer then lists forces he says are squeezing margins across the AI industry. First, demand: multiple studies, including some from organizations known for being bullish on AI, suggest large language models are not boosting productivity or returns for most businesses. One unnamed study found the share of Americans using AI at work fell from 46% in summer 2025 to 33% in summer 2026. He adds that when Anthropic released its Fable 5 frontier model this summer, its commercial reception was tepid. Second, competition: Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic offer models he describes as largely indistinguishable, so prices are hard to raise. He says the rush for customers ahead of IPOs led Anthropic and OpenAI to launch a price war this summer that is still going, with further pressure from Chinese open-weights models and models that run locally on phones and laptops. Third, cost: a 1 GW data center costs an estimated $31 billion, Anthropic has committed to 15 GW in the coming years and estimates it will ultimately need 20-25 GW, which he says explains the half-trillion-plus in commitments. Running the models adds energy, cooling and compute costs on top. Finally, external factors: backlash against data centers has scuttled some projects and delayed many others, and rising costs due to the Iran War and supply-chain problems could push Anthropic's operating costs higher.

His conclusion is that the economics are unlikely to improve soon: slowing growth plus huge fixed off-balance-sheet obligations is, in his words, a deadly mix. Going public now, he argues, would add risk to a stock market he calls historically overvalued and concentrated in a handful of tightly interconnected tech mega-caps, and would raise the risk of contagion if Anthropic reaches what he calls a financial precipice. He also argues that as a private company Anthropic is owned mostly by insiders, tech giants and venture capitalists, but once public its shares would flow into 401(k)s, retirement accounts and index funds, leaving workers, retirees and retail investors increasingly holding the bag.

The legal hook is the SEC's power to delay or stop an offering if it believes a registration statement is "on its face incomplete or inaccurate in any material respect." Scherer says that language might as well have been written with Anthropic in mind: the prospectus includes only unaudited results for the period of its claimed greatest revenue growth, puts its most significant future obligations in footnotes, and the company has kept announcing new 11-digit financial commitments as the IPO nears. His demand: the SEC should block the debut until Anthropic provides two consecutive quarters of audited financial statements, with all material information about its spending commitments disclosed.

Key facts

Matt Scherer argues in a Nov 2, 2026 Tech Policy Press op-ed that the SEC should block Anthropic's planned November IPO until it provides two consecutive quarters of audited financial statements.
He cites about $895 billion in contractual commitments, at least $582 billion of it non-cancelable compute spending with Amazon, AMD, Broadcom, Google and Microsoft, against $96 billion in cash.
He says Anthropic's 2026 results are unaudited and that third-quarter results suggest revenue growth slowed to a crawl over the summer.
He points to weak demand, a price war with OpenAI, and data center costs of about $31 billion per GW (15 GW committed, 20-25 GW expected need) as squeezing margins.
His warning is that a public listing would pass the risk to workers, retirees and retail investors through 401(k)s and index funds.

Why it matters

Anthropic is heading for a public listing, and this piece makes the case that its largest obligations are the part least visible to buyers of the stock. The author's core claim is that commitments of roughly $895 billion, mostly stretching into the 2030s, sit in footnotes rather than on the balance sheet, while the results for 2026 are unaudited. He uses the SEC's power to stop an offering whose registration statement is "on its face incomplete or inaccurate in any material respect" to frame the demand as a disclosure question, not only a bet on the company's fortunes. It is an argument, and it is a push for regulators to act on an AI company's listing.

Who it affects

Directly: Anthropic, whose planned November debut would be delayed if the SEC took the author's advice, and the SEC, which he says can delay or stop companies from going public. Indirectly, in the author's telling: prospective investors, and above all workers, retirees and retail investors whose 401(k)s, retirement accounts and index funds would hold Anthropic shares once it is listed. He also names the five compute counterparties (Amazon, AMD, Broadcom, Google and Microsoft) and rivals such as OpenAI that are caught up in the same price war and capital spending.

How to use it

This is an opinion piece, not a tool or a ruling, so there is nothing to adopt. A reader can use it as a checklist of what the author says to look for in Anthropic's registration statement: the footnotes on spending commitments, the split between the $582 billion with five named providers and the remaining $300 billion or so, which period is audited and which is not, and the cash position of $96 billion. His specific ask is two consecutive quarters of audited statements with all material commitments disclosed.

How solid is it

It is advocacy. The figures on cash, the $582 billion in non-cancelable commitments and the total of $895 billion are attributed by the author to Anthropic's filings, and he says the 2026 results are unaudited. The softer claims are his own reading: that revenue growth slowed to a crawl in Q3, that Fable 5 had a tepid reception, that a price war is ongoing, and that commitments may reach a trillion dollars or more by year end. The 46% to 33% fall in Americans using AI at work comes from one study the piece does not name, and the source of the $31 billion per GW estimate is not named either. Anthropic's revenue figures are not stated, and no response from Anthropic is quoted.

Risks and caveats

Predictions of a financial precipice, contagion and a market crash are the author's opinion, not facts drawn from the filing, and the piece mixes the two. Several of his arguments are conditional: rising costs from the Iran War and supply-chain problems "could" push costs higher, and the trillion-dollar figure is explicitly speculation. The piece does not report that the SEC has responded, opened a review or taken any action on the filing. Nor does it give an exact IPO date, share price, valuation or offer size. Readers should treat it as one side of the argument.

“The SEC should block Anthropic’s stock market debut until the company provides two consecutive quarters of audited financial statements, with all material information about the company’s spending commitments disclosed.”

— Matt Scherer, Tech Policy Press, Nov 2, 2026