Leopold Aschenbrenner withdraws the $3.5 billion sale of Anthropic equity and instead sells public stocks to deleverage and preserve private equity investments

According to The Wall Street Journal, during a time of tight funding, Leopold Aschenbrenner once agreed to sell a stake in Anthropic worth about $3.5 billion. The buyer was an investor led by Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital.

The deal was finalized late Wednesday night but was withdrawn the next morning. The fund then opted to sell most of its publicly traded stocks and use the proceeds to repay loans.

Leopold ultimately retained his stakes in Anthropic and other private companies. In a letter to investors, he stated that the fund chose to sacrifice its public stock positions to eliminate leverage and preserve private investments.