Ben Bernanke, the former Federal Reserve chair and 2022 Nobel Prize winner in Economics, is joining Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust, the governance body responsible for holding the Claude-maker accountable to its public mission.
What the Long-Term Benefit Trust actually does
Anthropic created the LTBT in September 2023 as a Delaware purpose trust. The trust holds a special class of stock, called Class T shares, which gives its trustees the power to elect a growing proportion of Anthropic’s board over time, with the goal of reaching majority control within four years of the trust’s formation. In plain terms: the trustees can eventually outvote shareholders if they believe the company is drifting from its stated mission of developing AI safely and for the public good.
The trust’s design also deliberately insulates trustees from financial incentives that might conflict with the public benefit mission. Current members include experts in AI safety and public policy, with Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, former California Supreme Court Justice and Carnegie Endowment president, joining in January 2026. Neil Buddy Shah and Richard Fontaine are also listed as trustees.
Why Bernanke, and why now
