Eric Schmidt allegedly promised his ex a slice of his Anthropic jackpot — but shes still waiting for it: sources | Latest Tech News
Five % of one % doesn’t sound like a lot — until it’s half of a trillion greenback deal.
Eric Schmidt stands to make billions when Anthropic goes public, but the ex-girlfriend who claims she helped him with the deal says he promised her a share — then cut her out when they broke up, sources told the Post.
The former Google boss, 71, reportedly owns about 1% of the AI company behind Claude, which former love Michelle Ritter, 32, says he promised to share with her.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, pictured talking in Miami on Nov. 6, 2025, allegedly promised ex-girlfriend Michelle Ritter 5% of his Anthropic stake, sources told The Post. Bloomberg via Getty Images
Michelle Ritter, the ex-girlfriend of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, says she was wrongfully disadvantaged of shares in Anthropic. Instagram
At the $965 billion valuation Anthropic announced in May, Schmidt’s stake could be price almost $10 billion on paper, a determine that has doubtless risen after strong indications the company will hit the stock market later this month with a valuation of around $1.5 trillion.
Ritter is preventing in court with Schmidt, having filed a federal grievance citing her “Anthropic-related” work as among a number of initiatives for which she alleges she went unpaid.
Ritter has also claimed that playboy Schmidt — who is married but has an open relationship with spouse Wendy — allegedly promised Ritter 5% of his Anthropic stake in exchange for her work on the deal according to a source acquainted with her claims.
Ritter claimed the ex-Google CEO repeatedly reassured her, “I’ve got you,” when it got here to sharing out its worth, the source said.
“She trusted him. Now she just wants to get paid,” the source said.
Michelle Ritter, pictured in an Instagram post, was 26 when she grew to become concerned with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt in 2020. Instagram
A source close to Ritter told The Post they’d personally heard Schmidt say in Los Angeles, where the 2 lived together for a period, that Ritter would get her share of the Anthropic shares.
Emails obtained by The Post point out Ritter was instantly concerned in early talks with Anthropic’s founders — but the declare to 5% of his profitable share doesn’t seem in those emails, and has also not been included in subsequent court papers associated to the pair’s bitter cut up in 2024.
Ritter was a 26-year-old Columbia University law and MBA scholar when she first met Schmidt in 2020. They began courting and went on to launch tech incubator Steel Perlot together, with Schmidt backing it with $100 million.
In December 2020, Schmidt proposed setting up a short-term company with a $1 million finances to pay Anthropic’s seven founders and cowl their laptop and cloud payments, the emails show. He requested Ritter and Amanda Rubin of Hillspire, his household workplace, to help kind out the setup.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, pictured at the White House on Sept. 29, 2026, exchanged emails with Michelle Ritter during early funding talks involving Eric Schmidt. REUTERS
Rubin wrote to Ritter on Dec. 11 thanking her for “laying out the big issues for this deal.”
The next month, Ritter started speaking with Anthropic co-founder Daniela Amodei instantly.
“As Eric said, I’m handling the raise,” Ritter wrote to Daniela on Jan. 7, 2021, referring to the raising of funds for investment.
That same month Daniela was asking Ritter to discuss through the “next steps on incorporation and initial investment,” according to the emails.
Ritter requested how the seven founders would divide their shares and what they thought the company was price before traders put in any money.
The next day, Daniela’s brother and fellow co-founder, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, proposed speaking instantly with Schmidt. Ritter told him Schmidt was trying ahead to the call, the emails state.
Anthropic co-founders Dario Amodei, left, and his sister Daniela mentioned the company’s early funding with Michelle Ritter, emails obtained by The Post show. ANTHROPC
Schmidt was then among the traders in Anthropic’s $124 million Series A, its first major funding spherical, in May 2021. He reportedly put in tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars}.
“Michelle was the primary driver of the Anthropic Investment,” Elijah “Eli” Reinhardt, an early member of the Steel Perlot workforce, said in a signed declaration filed in help of Ritter in her federal lawsuit against Schmidt in Los Angeles.
Reinhardt said Ritter had introduced the chance to Steel Perlot. However, he also wrote he believed Schmidt’s household workplace had put the money into the Series A investment.
“It didn’t seem right that [Steel Perlot] was sidelined on the deal since Michelle initiated it,” Reinhardt said in the declaration.
Reinhardt said he never acquired a share of features he was promised on investments he labored on with Steel Perlot. He didn’t return The Post’s calls searching for remark.
Former Steel Perlot workforce member Elijah “Eli” Reinhardt, pictured with Sundar Pichai in a picture posted Nov. 16, 2023, called Michelle Ritter the “primary driver” of the Anthropic investment in a court declaration. Eli Reinhardt/ X
Schmidt and Ritter broke up in 2024, after he was noticed with another lady.
In court papers filed a yr later, Ritter accused Schmidt of rape and spying on her with hidden cameras, allegations which had been later ruled to be false, with an arbitrator ordering her to pay $12 million in damages to Schmidt.
This September a California choose ruled Ritter had disregarded orders of the arbitrator in the case and had “refused to respond to discovery, produce documents or sit for a deposition, and missed several hearings,” according to Law360 and refused to vacate the ruling.
There is no indication Ritter has paid any of the $12 million settlement owed.
Eric Schmidt, pictured at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills on May 2, 2023, has been locked in a legal battle with ex-girlfriend and former business accomplice Michelle Ritter. REUTERS
In a assertion to The Post, Ritter said, “Anthropic is one of many deals that Eric and his family office have wrongfully taken away my contractual shares in.”
“Eric and his family office should stop hiding behind a personal breakup as an excuse to not pay for work. Like others, Eric and his team think they are above the law,” she added.
Schmidt’s lawyer, Patricia Glaser, told The Post in November 2025 Ritter’s lawsuit was “the latest desperate and destructive effort to publish false and defamatory statements,” about him, and an attempt to escape her own accountability.
A consultant for Schmidt declined The Post’s request for remark.
A source close to Ritter recalled a day when Schmidt stepped off his non-public jet at a Bay Area airport to meet Ritter. The two said they had been headed to a assembly with Anthropic.
“He fooled us all,” the source claimed.
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