Published : 06 Oct 2026, 04:47 PM
Updated : 06 Oct 2026, 04:47 PM
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei earned $18 million in 2025, according to the artificial intelligence company's IPO filing, placing him in the middle range of compensation among chief executives at major technology firms.
Anthropic is preparing for an IPO as early as this fall that could value the Claude AI developer at more than $2 trillion, according to its prospectus seen by Reuters.
Amodei's compensation last year was higher than that of the CEOs of Alphabet and Amazon but below the pay received by the chiefs of Oracle and Nvidia.
Much of Amodei's package came from stock and other forms of compensation, highlighting how annual salaries account for only a small part of the wealth earned by many technology founders.
Amodei and his sister, Anthropic President Daniela Amodei, each had their annual salaries doubled in July to $1.4 million. Stock and options made up most of their compensation in 2025, with Daniela Amodei receiving $16.4 million in total.
Anthropic's board this year granted the siblings additional equity in the form of restricted stock units, some of which are tied to their continued employment and some to the company's planned IPO.
Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao earned $720,250 last year. He was granted options to buy 1.4 million shares when he joined Anthropic in 2024 and exercised options worth $385,285 in 2025.
An Anthropic spokesperson declined to comment on the figures.
Middle of The Pack
The rise in US CEO pay has outpaced gains for the average worker in recent years, a trend critics fear could widen further with the expansion of artificial intelligence.
Average annual compensation for S&P 500 CEOs rose 21 percent to $22.8 million last year, excluding Tesla CEO Elon Musk's extraordinary $158 billion restricted stock plan, according to the AFL-CIO.
Courtney Yu, director of research at executive compensation data firm Equilar, said Amodei's $18 million package "seems on the lower end for a company valued at $2 trillion", but his compensation could look different after Anthropic goes public and discloses his full ownership stake.
With six other co-founders, Amodei may ultimately receive a smaller share of the wealth created by the IPO than some other major technology CEOs, Yu said.
Compensation among executives at AI-focused technology companies varied widely in 2025, based on US Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Oracle co-CEO Clayton Magouyrk earned $627.5 million, while Elon Musk received $54,080 as CEO of SpaceX before the company went public.
SpaceX has also promised Musk super-voting restricted shares if its market value reaches $7.5 trillion and the company puts 1 million people on Mars.
Other major technology companies report lower annual compensation for their CEOs, with executives often benefiting from large stock holdings that are not fully reflected in yearly pay figures.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai earned $10.9 million in 2025, including $8.8 million for personal security due to his public profile. On an "actually paid" basis, which reflects changes in the value of unvested shares, Pichai received $213.9 million.
Amazon CEO Andrew Jassy's reported compensation was $2.1 million, mainly reflecting travel and security costs. On an "actually paid" basis, he received $13.2 million.
Living Off The Stock
Equilar's Yu said the disclosures demonstrate why founder CEOs can rely less on annual compensation.
"Founder CEOs typically own enough equity that when the company does well and the stock prices increase they can just live off the wealth of the equity they already own, and typically don't take in a lot in annual compensation," Yu said.
Anthropic said in its filing that it uses a mix of salary, equity awards and other benefits. The S-1 statement seen by Reuters does not disclose the founders' ownership stakes, which could be worth billions of dollars depending on the final IPO valuation and terms.
The Amodei siblings and their fellow co-founders have pledged in the filing to dedicate 80 percent of their personal Anthropic equity to charitable causes.
Asked about the pledge, an Anthropic spokesperson referred to an essay Dario Amodei published earlier this year in which he argued that wealthy people have an obligation to address problems arising from AI adoption.
