Which companies will the US take a stake in this year? [Subquestion: Anthropic]

probability: 13%

rationale:

I assess a 13% probability that the US federal government will take a stake in Anthropic before January 1, 2027. This estimate is significantly below the market's 26%, driven by Anthropic's actively adversarial relationship with the administration and its explicit lack of participation in equity negotiations, which offset the administration's broader push for strategic equity stakes.

The case for a stake rests on the Trump administration's normalized pattern of taking equity in strategic companies, including Intel's 9.9% stake, CHIPS Act quantum incentives nist.gov, and multiple rare-earth deals reuters.com. The administration has also publicly floated the idea of securing public stakes in top AI companies reuters.comreuters.com. However, as of mid-June 2026, the specific mechanisms for AI stakes remain undefined and face industry and congressional skepticism semafor.com.

Crucially, Anthropic's positioning is fundamentally different from peers like OpenAI. Reporting explicitly confirms that Anthropic is not in conversations with the administration about providing government equity notus.orgreuters.com. Furthermore, Anthropic is currently embroiled in an adversarial relationship with the government, marked by a Pentagon blacklisting that saw the DoD move two-thirds of its AI workflows off Anthropic models fortune.com, alongside Commerce Department export control disputes concerning its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models reuters.comreuters.com.

Structural and timeline barriers further diminish the likelihood of a deal. Anthropic is navigating a confidential IPO process with a recent $65B raise at a ~$965B post-money valuation anthropic.comanthropic.com. Executing a complex, likely unsolicited equity agreement with a private company of this size within a ~6.5-month window is highly improbable.

The 13% probability reflects the non-trivial tail risk that the administration's aggressive and unpredictable approach forces a rapid quid-pro-quo, perhaps using the ongoing regulatory and export control disputes as leverage to secure an equity bundle before the IPO. However, given Anthropic's current refusal to negotiate and the significant logistical hurdles, a completed equity stake by year-end remains unlikely.