All shook up: Elvis Presley's estate sues Anthropic right as investors get their first look at the company's IPO filing

The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claims Anthropic infringed on 274 Presley songs, including some of his biggest hits, like “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “All Shook Up.” Anthropic is accused of circumventing certain measures used to protect the music.

A familiar tune

The charges against Anthropic might seem like replay of sorts to close observers of the company. Earlier this month, music company Reservoir sued the AI firm, alleging it stole copyrighted lyrics to songs from Joni Mitchell, Madonna, Evanescence and more.

And in January, United Music Group sued Anthropic for $3 billion, saying it had built a library of “pirated” songs. Anthropic has asked a judge to rule that its use of the songs was protected under fair use rules.

“Anthropic has admitted in public statements and in other litigations to widespread copying of copyrighted materials for use in the training of its ‘artificial intelligence’ (’AI’) models,” the Presley estate wrote in its legal filing. “It has done so in a manner that completely disregards the Elvis Plaintiffs’ rights by making unlicensed copies of its Works, removing Copyright Management Information (’CMI’), and training the AI models themselves to disregard the CMI in both its training and output to conceal the infringement.”

Uncomfortable timing

The Elvis suit was filed right before Anthropic made public its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That IPO is expected to be valued at $2 trillion, which would make it the largest of all time.

That paperwork, though, had plenty of distractions of its own. Anthropic’s list of risks with the IPO takes up nearly one-quarter of the documents — and the company is forced to confront the very public debate about the possible existential risk AI presents.

The company warns that AI “models, including our own, have exhibited, and may in the future exhibit, unexpected strategic or self-preserving behaviors, including attempts to resist shutdown, conceal or manipulate information, or generate outputs that could be interpreted as coercive, deceptive, or manipulative, including behavior resembling blackmail or efforts to influence human decision-makers to preserve the model’s continued operation or access.”

At the same time, Anthropic revealed that in the first half of 2026, it had a net loss of $80.75 billion. The upside for the company, though, was that the shortfall was not related to issues surrounding debt or compute. As the value of the company increased this year, that triggered massive accounting charges, resulting in the loss.