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Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff says his company’s investment in Anthropic could eventually be worth “tens of billions”, after Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI blocked Salesforce from investing in its rival, according to Yahoo Finance UK.

Why it matters

Benioff said Salesforce instead backed Anthropic and other AI companies, describing the decision as a forced change of plan rather than a perfectly timed masterstroke. Salesforce now uses Anthropic’s Claude model in Slackbot and other interfaces, making the investment part of a wider commercial partnership. Salesforce has not disclosed how much Anthropic it owns, so “tens of billions” is Benioff’s expectation, not a current valuation of the stake. A possible Anthropic listing could eventually give the holding a public market value, but the timing and terms remain uncertain.

Discuss: Would Salesforce’s Anthropic bet look clever without the Microsoft roadblock, or is this mainly a very expensive case of making the best of Plan B?

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