Bill Ackman Takes a Jab at Anthropic's S-1 Filing, Asks if '10% Chance' of AI Killing Humans Would Be Listed as Top Risk

Pershing Square Capital Management CEO Bill Ackman took a dig at Anthropic‘s potential risk factors listed in the S-1 filing, amid its warnings about potential catastrophic outcomes from AI.

Ackman took to X and questioned whether the company’s management, who believe there’s a chance of AI causing human extinction, would list this as a risk factor.

“Why won’t the first risk factor have to be: "Our senior management believes that there is a more than 10% chance that AI will kill all humans, which will likely cause our revenues to go to zero and our stock to lose all of its value," he wrote.

I am looking forward to reading the @AnthropicAI S-1 risk factors.

Why won’t the first risk factor have to be:

"Our senior management believes that there is a more than 10% chance that AI will kill all humans, which will likely cause our revenues to go to zero and our stock to…

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) September 24, 2026

Anthropic Pushes for AI Slowdown

Ackman’s post comes after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay earlier this month urging the AI industry to slow down advancements in model capabilities due to their potential catastrophic risks. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed the call to "pace the frontier" and said OpenAI would also make its models available to external evaluators. Amodei’s call was also supported by Elon Musk.

This came on the heels of an Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon‘s resignation and a series of warnings. Another researcher from the company, Evan Hubinger, said he believes AI has more than a 10% chance of wiping out humanity within the next decade. Supporting Coxon, who said that AI could “kill” all humans, Hubinger said AI researchers privately believe such a scenario is possible. Coxon also stated that AI labs are “gambling with our lives.”

 Ackman had reacted to the doomsday warnings and called it “Concerning.”

Anthropic IPO Plans Draw Burry’s Scrutiny

In June, Anthropic confidentially filed a draft Form S-1 with the SEC, positioning the AI company for a potential IPO. The AI giant has reportedly selected Nasdaq as the venue for its planned IPO, which could value the company at $2 trillion or more, surpassing the $1.75 trillion valuation of Elon Musk‘s Space Exploration Technologies Corp.‘s (NASDAQ: SPCX) listing in June.

Investor Michael Burry criticized OpenAI and Anthropic executives for urging a slowdown in AI development, arguing that such warnings could benefit established companies and build “hype & puffery” ahead of potential IPOs. He characterized the messaging as promotional rather than purely safety-driven.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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