Early Sale of FTX's Anthropic Shares Cost US Government $4.7 Billion

The US Marshals Service sold off Anthropic shares that were taken from two FTX executives in 2025. That same year, Anthropic's valuation tripled.

In 2022, Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh put $50 million into Anthropic. Each had a role in diverting customer money from FTX into private investments via a hidden method. Following their guilty pleas, a court ordered them to forfeit the shares.

Anthropic's Value Tripled in 2025

Ellison contributed $10 million and Singh $40 million, with each receiving Series B preferred shares. Court documents indicate that a judge approved Ellison's final forfeiture order on February 18, 2025.

Singh's order came in April, after which the Marshals sold both lots to existing investors on Anthropic's cap table.

The timing was crucial, as Anthropic finished a funding round at $61.5 billion on March 3, 2025. Half a year later, it completed another round at $183 billion.

Anthropic's valuation timeline:

• 2021: Founded
• 2023: $4.1 billion
• 2024: $18.5 billion
• Mar 2025: $61.5 billion
• Sep 2025: $183 billion
• Nov 2025: $350 billion
• Feb 2026: $380 billion
• May 2026: $965 billion https://t.co/N4Uandb6Cb

— Polymarket Money (@PolymarketMoney) June 9, 2026

No one outside the government knows whether the sale occurred before or after that valuation leap. The purchase price, identities of buyers, and transaction date are all undisclosed.

By selling the Anthropic shares, the US government missed out on substantial profits, similar to how Sam Bankman-Fried had earlier sold off stakes in several firms, including Anthropic.

“Sam Bankman-Fried is the greatest investor of all time…That means if he weren’t in jail today and still owned all this equity, he’d be worth ~$100 billion… He’d be top 20 richest people in the world,” stated Alex Finn, Founder/CEO of Henry Intelligent Machines PBC.

FTX Victims' Knowledge and Unknowns

Anthropic conducted another fundraising in May 2026 at a $965 billion valuation. Just four days after, it filed a confidential draft IPO registration with the SEC. PitchBook and UCLA analysts currently estimate the confiscated shares to be worth $2.6 billion to $5 billion.

The FTX estate had already made a similar move. Its legal team sold two-thirds of its Anthropic holdings in March 2024 for $884 million, one of multiple early exits it made.

That transaction was public, with a court filing listing all buyers, including Jane Street and an Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. No comparable disclosure exists for the Marshals' sale.

“It’s a very opaque process… It’s completely at the discretion, by law, of the attorney general of the United States,” Duncan Levin, a white-collar defense attorney who teaches forfeiture at Harvard Law School, reportedly told Business Insider.

However, confiscated funds can still be reclaimed, as demonstrated when Robinhood purchased Sam Bankman-Fried's seized shares from the government for $605.7 million in 2023.

Robinhood, $HOOD, to buy back Sam Bankman-Fried's stake in the company from the US government for $605.7 million.

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) September 1, 2023

The estate has continued to repay creditors. As of the end of June 2026, no Anthropic-related payment had emerged.

The Justice Department states that victim compensation is a priority and that the sale's details are confidential. Currently, only the buyers are aware of what they acquired.