Analysis
Anthropic's S-1 lists U.S. immigration policy among the risks to its ability to recruit and retain AI talent, Fortune reported on October 28, without naming President Trump or his administration directly in that section of the filing.
## What changed since Pulse last covered Anthropic's S-1 Pulse has tracked Anthropic's IPO filing as it disclosed compute commitments, revenue figures and other risk factors. The immigration risk factor, disclosed the week of October 26 according to Fortune, is a new specific line in the filing that had not previously surfaced in Pulse's coverage of the S-1's talent and hiring sections.
## What the S-1 actually says The filing states that "talent is one of our most important advantages, and maintaining our talent density requires retaining exceptional people," and warns that "changes to immigration policies that restrain the flow of professional and technical talent" may "inhibit" Anthropic's "ability to recruit and retain highly qualified employees." The S-1 also names possible nationalization of Anthropic's technology and misuse of Claude to help create biological weapons among its other disclosed risks, placing the immigration language in a filing already candid about unusual, AI-specific threats to the business.
“## The policy backdrop The Trump administration introduced a $100,000 fee on certain H-1B petitions in September 2025.”
## The policy backdrop The Trump administration introduced a $100,000 fee on certain H-1B petitions in September 2025. A federal judge in Massachusetts vacated that policy in June 2026, but the administration has appealed, and court orders continue to block fee collection in the meantime. Separately, the administration has proposed a further $103,265 H-1B fee and increased scrutiny of companies that lay off American workers. TechNet, an industry group whose members include Anthropic, Amazon, Google and Meta, has urged U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to withdraw that newer proposed fee. Anthropic itself took a clear public position in 2023, telling DHS and USCIS in a letter that it had used the H-1B program to fill advanced-skill roles amid a broader STEM talent shortage.
## Why this matters for the IPO Anthropic is preparing a potential IPO that could value the company near $2 trillion, by Fortune's account, possibly as early as next month.
The S-1 also discloses that Anthropic's revenue per employee exceeded $6.6 million over the twelve months ending September 2026, up 371% from $1.4 million a year earlier -- a productivity figure that makes each specialized hire unusually valuable, and each hire lost to visa friction unusually costly relative to a typical company's headcount economics. The filing separately notes Anthropic has "limited experience" running data centers at the scale its compute commitments require, meaning the company will need to hire specialized infrastructure talent at exactly the moment immigration policy risk is rising.
## The regulatory timeline Anthropic avoided naming the administration directly, a choice that reads as deliberate given the company is weeks from a roadshow that will need support from regulators and institutional investors across the political spectrum. The bigger test is whether the pending appeal of the vacated $100,000 H-1B fee, or a ruling on the newer proposed fee TechNet is fighting, lands before Anthropic's IPO prices -- a court outcome entirely outside the company's control that could still move its disclosed risk profile in the weeks ahead.