SBF Called AI. The Estate Sold the Receipts. 📉

The bankruptcy estate overseeing FTX liquidated early venture stakes in two of the most valuable private companies in artificial intelligence, Anysphere, the maker of AI coding tool Cursor, and Anthropic, for a small fraction of the valuations those holdings would later command, according to public filings and reporting by Forbes and BeInCrypto.

In 2022, Alameda Research wrote a $200,000 check into Anysphere during a pre-seed round, securing roughly 5% of the company. In 2023, the FTX bankruptcy estate sold the position back at cost. This week, SpaceX agreed to a $60 billion all-stock deal to acquire Cursor, building on a call option the rocket company first secured in April 2026. At that valuation, the discarded 5% stake would be worth about $3 billion. "SBF's sleepless prison nights just got worse… In 2022, Alameda (FTX) dropped $200k into Cursor pre-seed → ~5% stake at a ~$4M valuation. FTX bankruptcy sold the entire position back at cost. Today, that 5% would be worth $3B – a 15,000x return," commented John LeFevre.

FTX had invested about $500 million in Anthropic in 2021, giving the exchange close to an 8% holding in the company founded by former OpenAI researchers Dario and Daniela Amodei. With court approval, the estate sold the stake in two 2024 tranches: about $884 million to a group of institutional buyers in March, and a further $452 million that June, totaling roughly $1.3 billion. Anthropic has since raised a $30 billion round at a $380 billion post-money valuation, per the company's own disclosure. The same 8% stake would now be worth more than $30 billion.

Investor Sjuul said, "He made all these bets at 29, while running a $32B exchange…The estate just wasn't allowed to hold them. Say whatever you want. The man had the eye." Another commenter added, "That guy knew how to trade with his client's money, he just ran out of time." The combined Cursor and Anthropic proceeds contributed to creditor recoveries moving toward full repayment through the FTX bankruptcy process.