What happened?

According to a Financial Times report, the effective altruism movement has begun receiving record-level donations as the planned initial public offerings (IPOs) of Anthropic and OpenAI create new millionaires. The movement had suffered serious reputational damage after being associated with the fraud scandal involving Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

According to the report, some employees who stand to become wealthy as their stock options convert to cash during the two AI companies' IPO processes plan to direct a significant portion of their earnings to charitable causes in line with the principle of 'effective giving.'

Why does it matter?

The effective altruism movement is known as a philosophical and philanthropic approach that advocates directing donations scientifically to achieve the greatest possible impact. SBF's close ties to the movement and the collapse of FTX had long damaged its funding sources and reputation.

The growing wealth of employees at AI companies creates a new funding channel for the movement, independent of the SBF era. This stands out as an example of how rapid wealth creation in the AI sector is reflected in social and philanthropic spheres.

What we know

  • The effective altruism movement has begun receiving record-level donations.
  • The movement went through a difficult period following the SBF and FTX scandal.
  • Anthropic and OpenAI's IPOs are expected to create new millionaires.
  • Some of these newly wealthy individuals say they adhere to the principle of 'effective giving.'

What's next?

Exact dates for Anthropic and OpenAI's IPO timelines have not yet been publicly disclosed. If the IPOs proceed, the scale and direction of donation flows toward the effective altruism movement will become clearer.

The numbers

The growth the story rests on is concrete. The movement's pledge platform, Giving What We Can, reports that donation volume rose from $1.2 billion in 2024 to roughly $2 billion in 2025 — not the contraction expected after the FTX collapse but a record increase.

The tie to Anthropic is particularly tight: more than 60 current and former employees have signed the pledge to give at least 10 percent of their income, and all seven founders have promised to give away 80 percent of their fortunes. If the listing happens, those pledges turn paper shares into cash and into donations.

The dependency moves rather than disappears

The lesson the movement drew from FTX was the risk of depending on a single donor. The new picture does not remove that risk; it relocates it. Funding now rests not on one person but on one sector — and on that sector's share valuations. Should AI company valuations enter a correction, donation volume moves with them.

There is a second question the story does not raise: advocates of this same movement sit at the centre of the argument that AI carries existential risk. Being funded by the public listings of the companies now named as the source of that risk is something the movement will have to work out internally.