Anthropic’s path to a potentially record-setting November IPO looked less certain after the U.S. midterm elections and a sell-off in AI-related stocks. Kalshi’s odds of an IPO announcement before Dec. 1 dropped to 57% from above 85%. They later rebounded after a report that Anthropic planned to continue toward a pre-Thanksgiving listing—but the market signals tracked different events, and investors were still reassessing the company’s value.
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What the prediction-market odds showed
Kalshi’s contract asked whether Anthropic would officially announce an IPO before Dec. 1. CNBC reported that its odds fell from above 85% to 57% during the week after Democrats won control of Congress and several key governorships.
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After the Financial Times report that Anthropic would press ahead with plans to list before Thanksgiving, a secondary report put Kalshi’s “before Dec. 1” contract at 82 cents at 21:58 UTC on Nov. 6—an implied probability of about 82% at that moment. The same report said Polymarket put the chance of Anthropic shares listing by Nov. 30 at 76% at 21:15 UTC.
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Those percentages are not directly comparable: Kalshi’s cited contract concerned an official announcement, while Polymarket’s was about shares beginning to trade. They are snapshots at different times, not a guarantee that the offering would happen. The supplied reporting also does not establish the full price history behind the rebound.
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Why the election and sell-off mattered
The change in Kalshi odds coincided with AI-stock declines after Democratic victories in Congress and several governor’s races. CNBC connected the repricing to investor concerns about what the new political landscape could mean for AI infrastructure and data-center expansion.
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Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa was reported to have called for pausing data-center development until stronger protections were in place. That stance illustrates why investors were watching state-level policy, but it does not mean new restrictions had already been enacted.
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Valuation expectations moved lower
Before the sell-off, reports described IPO valuation expectations around $1.5 trillion or higher, with some estimates reaching $2 trillion.
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10 By Nov. 6, Bloomberg reported that potential buyers were discussing $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion, with some considering as little as $1.1 trillion. A separate report citing the Wall Street Journal said some major investors thought the valuation might need to come closer to $1 trillion.
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These were investor discussions, not an agreed offering price. Anthropic’s May private funding round valued it at $965 billion, according to reporting on its IPO filing.
9 A separate summary of the Financial Times report described a planned raise of $80 billion to $100 billion and a valuation range of $1.25 trillion to $1.75 trillion. Those figures were reported targets, not finalized terms.
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A timetable, not a confirmed listing
Anthropic publicly filed its IPO paperwork on Oct. 26. Contemporary reports described a possible debut before Thanksgiving and said a roadshow could begin as early as the week of Nov. 9.
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13 But neither prediction-market odds nor a reported timetable confirmed a completed November listing.
The filing left the share count and price range blank, so there was no published price range to resolve the gap between investor estimates.
10 The offering remained a potential test of investor appetite for financing AI companies’ rapid growth and substantial costs.
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The clearest takeaway is that confidence in the timing weakened after the election-related market sell-off, then improved following reports that Anthropic intended to proceed. The rebound did not erase the bigger uncertainty: what investors would pay, and whether the company could complete a listing on its reported schedule.