David Sacks Slams 'Whistleblower' Jacob Coxon’s Claims on AI Risk to Humans, Raises Questions Ahead of Anthropic IPO

Former White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks accused ex-Anthropic researcher-turned-critic Jacob Coxon of running a coordinated publicity campaign this week, after Coxon canceled a planned interview hours before it was set to happen.

Sacks calls resignation an orchestrated campaign

Sacks opened his critique on the All-In Podcast episode that aired Friday, saying the media is "calling him a whistleblower, but what evidence has he brought forward that we didn't have?"

He pressed further, "This is all just vibes from him. Show us the data. Show us the report. Show us the leaked information that the public didn't already have."

Sack's comments follow Coxon's resignation from Anthropic earlier this week, when he warned on X that the company and OpenAI are "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives." The post drew massive traction within a day.

Anthropic alignment lead Evan Hubinger backed him, saying he sees greater than a 10% chance AI causes human extinction within a decade.

Sacks called the timing suspicious, noting that Coxon's account showed no posts or followers prior to the resignation thread. "If he did have prior posts, they were scrubbed," Sacks said. "So this was a completely blank account and somehow within a day it finds this huge audience."

Sacks Ties Viral Post to Anthropic's Own Investor Network

He named three advocacy groups that he said helped spread the post within its first 15 minutes. They were Encode AI, whose general counsel Nathan Calvin supported California’s SB 53 AI law; the AI Policy Network, which supports federal AI regulation; and the AI Futures Project, led by Daniel Kokotajlo. Sacks also pointed out that Kokotajlo had made a similar warning on Joe Rogan's podcast around the same time.

Sacks tied all three groups to funding from Dustin Moskovitz, an investor in Anthropic's Series A round, calling it "a tight-knit community that jumped on this tweet." He also said Wall Street Journal coverage of the resignation appeared to run ahead of an embargoed release time.

The critical exchange began after co-host Jason Calacanis said on the show that Coxon had reached out wanting to appear on the podcast, then backed out the morning of the planned interview. Sacks suggested Coxon may have pulled out after realizing "it would be a tough interview," adding that he had wanted to ask Coxon directly who had connected him with the Wall Street Journal ahead of his resignation post.

IPO timing raises disclosure stakes

The dispute lands as Anthropic pursues a reported $2 trillion IPO. The panel argued that if the company's own safety staff privately believe its technology poses existential risk, that creates a disclosure problem for its Securities and Exchange Commission filings and exposes Anthropic to product-liability claims.

On the show, Sacks noted that Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA)/a> CEO Jensen Huang, speaking that day at a Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS)/a> technology conference, had called Coxon's comments "outlandish and deeply untrue."/p> figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> iframe loading="lazy" title="AI Kills Everybody or Doomer Psyop? OpenAI’s Math Breakthrough, Nike’s $200B Collapse" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cvxjqbfLVk0?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen>/iframe> /div>

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