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Will Anthropic return the $580M in Series B funding led by SBF?

40 points by citationneeded0 ↗ HN
What will happen to this money? Will it be clawed back in bankruptcy proceedings? If Anthropic isn’t legally obligated to return it, will they voluntarily return it out of ethical and reputational concerns? How will this affect their operations and runway?

I wonder if the FTX liquidators have already contacted them saying not to spend it.

> The Series B follows the company raising $124 million in a Series A round in 2021. The Series B round was led by Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX. The round also included participation from Caroline Ellison, Jim McClave, Nishad Singh, Jaan Tallinn, and the Center for Emerging Risk Research (CERR).

https://www.anthropic.com/news/announcement

10 comments

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otiose_tortoise
Anthropic won't give back the funding. The bankruptcy proceedings will likely claw back the Anthropic equity that SBF owns, which will then be sold & distributed as part of the bankruptcy.
iamleppert
False. If I deposited money into my bank account, or even any investment account, and that money was fraudulently invested on my behalf without my knowledge, I sure better be paid back with money, not non-liquid "equity" funny money in some private AI tech company (likely way overvalued) that can't even be traded on the public markets.

Looking forward to the great unwinding of FTX investments that will give a whole new meaning to "claw back". Let this be a lesson to founders not to take money from just anyone -- you wouldn't let a drug cartel finance your tech company, would you?

ivalm
If there was no fraud then clearly there would be just in kind distribution but no claw-back. With fraud, the questions becomes if the money invested was fraudulently invested. It can be that there was fraud AND investments were not fraudulent.
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autotune
As long as you give $1 of that drug cartel’s money to a street beggar I don’t see the issue here. (/s)
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Waterluvian
Not a lawyer so I won’t even try to give detail, but there’s a legal concept of “proceeds of a crime.” I think it may be handled very differently.
TacticalCoder
If they don't return it it may be taken by the scruff of the neck by authorities.

They'd be wise to also look in MacAskill's talks / writings / tweets / etc. The guy clearly promoted SBF, was apparently involved in the beginnings of the Alameda scam and looks more like a guru than a professor. Complete with getting his students to pledge giving part of the money they (illegally?) make to his cause. MacAskill also clearly benefitted from money stolen by SBF/Alameda/FTX to buy $15m real estate in the UK for his "non profit" / altruistic bullshit. Real estate which I hope shall be seized and sold as part of the proceedings clamping down on the stolen money.

Fuck these motherfuckers. Just fuck them. Expose them. Seize what they bought with stolen money.

BTW: if anyone knows of a way not to donate to these supposedly altruistic causes but to donate instead to investigative journalists digging what they can on these guys, I'm all ears.

adammarples
The good law project is a good bet in the UK.