Kiwi Chris Liddell recruited by AI giant Anthropic ahead of $630 billion IPO

One of the biggest companies in AI has recruited New Zealander Chris Liddell to its board before an anticipated stock market listing, which is expected to be one of Wall Street’s biggest ever in dollar terms.

Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot, on Friday said it had raised US$30 billion ($50b) in venture capital at a US$380b valuation.

It was the second-largest VC raise ever behind ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s recent US$40b round. The Wall Street Journal, which broke the news of Liddell’s appointment, says it’s likely the precursor to an initial public offering (IPO) later this year.

To-do list: Chris Liddell with Donald Trump in 2017. Photo / Getty

Former Carter Holt Harvey chief executive and Xero chairman Liddell was deputy chief of staff for policy during Donald Trump’s first presidential term – and was credited with a key role in persuading the voted-out President to leave the White House after Trump initially refused to accept the 2020 result.

Notably, in a chaotic White House where many senior appointees didn’t make it to 12 months, Liddell served the full four-year term.

Liddell first rose to fame in US business circles when he was named Microsoft’s chief financial officer.

Chris Liddell (far right) at a 2017 Technology Council Roundtable with Donald Trump and members of the President's American Technology Council, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Photo / Getty

In 2009, he was head-hunted by General Motors then in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As vice-president and CFO, he helped mastermind the car maker’s US$23b New York Stock Exchange listing in 2010. At the time, it was the largest IPO.

Liddell was back in New Zealand’s headlines last year as the Government paid $20,000 to fly him from New York to Auckland to speak at its Infrastructure Investment Summit.

Labour’s Kieran McAnulty said the payment should “more than raise eyebrows” given the Trump administration’s tariffs, which hurt NZ.

Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop said Liddell had no affiliation with the second Trump administration and paying his airfare was warranted, given the audience included fund managers who controlled about $6 trillion.

Liddell has homes in the US and NZ.

He has invested in a number of start-ups, including South Island oat-milk brand Otis.

In 2017, Liddell reportedly paid $15 million to buy the penthouse in The International, formerly Fonterra’s Auckland headquarters, next to The Northern Club.

Who is Anthropic?

Anthropic is predicted to be one of three blockbuster listings on Wall Street this year. Elon Musk’s SpaceX and OpenAI are also tipped for IPOs.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of executives and researchers who defected from OpenAI.

Amazon is its largest single outside investor, but its smaller backers are a who’s who of Big Tech, including Google, Microsoft and Nvidia.

Anthropic hit headlines this month when it released a new “co-work” plug-in for Claude capable of taking on various legal tasks. Makers of specialised software for the legal industry, and software stocks as a whole, including Xero, took a hammering in the days after on fears that do-it-all chatbots would eat their lunch.

While OpenAI initially targeted everybody, sparking an artificial intelligence frenzy, Anthropic has focused more on professionals and gained popularity with software coders.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.