Meta Is One of Anthropic’s Largest Customers Despite Public Feud

On 28 August 2026 The Business Times, reprinting New York Times reporting, said Meta has become one of Anthropic’s largest customers even as Mark Zuckerberg publicly attacked leading labs. In a 6,500-word essay on 10 August he accused those labs — without naming Anthropic or Dario Amodei — of consolidating power and painting the future as “filled with doom.” Privately, people familiar with both companies told the Times that Meta once projected annual Anthropic spend as high as $10 billion and is still paying hundreds of millions of dollars a month after some cutbacks.

What Zuckerberg said in public versus what Meta buys in private

The August 10 essay argued that if “those labs lead,” power would tilt toward large institutions over individuals. The Business Times notes he did not name Anthropic. The same story says five people with knowledge of the companies describe Meta as a heavy user of Anthropic models — heavy enough to rank among the startup’s biggest customers. That is the friend-foe pin: a public critique of doom-framed concentration, and a private invoice large enough to matter on Anthropic’s path to a possible public listing.

Two people said Meta’s internal projection reached $10 billion a year on Anthropic models. Two people said that even after Meta trimmed some of that usage, monthly spend remains in the hundreds of millions. Meta and Anthropic both declined to comment. File those figures as sourced projections and run-rate descriptions from unnamed insiders, not as booked GAAP line items Meta has acknowledged.

Keep the customer file next to <a href="https://www.promptcrates.com/news/openai-gains-on-anthropic-ramp-business-users">Ramp’s view of OpenAI and Anthropic business-user share</a> and <a href="https://www.promptcrates.com/news/salesforce-anthropic-claudeforce-crm-inside-claude">Salesforce’s Claudeforce CRM inside Claude</a>. Ramp is a spend-mix story among many firms. Claudeforce is a product partnership. This 28 August file is Meta as a quiet mega-buyer of the same lab its CEO needled in an essay.

Hatch, Nat Friedman, and a possible $2 trillion IPO

Four people told the Times that Anthropic models power and test Hatch, a coming Meta product Zuckerberg has described as a personal agent that works 24 hours a day on a user’s health, relationships, and finances. Hatch is not generally available in the 28 August story. It is the product reason insiders give for why Meta would keep paying Anthropic while building its own models. Do not write that Hatch has launched. Do not write that Hatch runs only on Claude. Write that Anthropic systems are used to power and test it, per those four people.

Meta leaders know the invoices can move Anthropic’s numbers before an IPO that sources said could value the company around $2 trillion. Nat Friedman, Meta’s head of AI product, told some staff that using only Meta’s own coding tools or OpenAI’s could lower Anthropic’s revenue ahead of that listing, according to people briefed on the remarks. Theory Ventures investor Tomasz Tunguz compared the dynamic to generals trying to destabilize an offering. That quote is color. Friedman’s reported staff comment is the operational tell: Meta is aware it can both depend on Anthropic and dent Anthropic’s top line.

Compute context still belongs on a separate card. <a href="https://www.promptcrates.com/news/anthropic-45-billion-nscale-vera-rubin-west-virginia">Anthropic’s roughly $45 billion Nscale Vera Rubin reservation</a> is about capacity Anthropic is buying. This story is about capacity Meta is renting from Anthropic’s API. Mixing them implies a circular cash loop that the Times piece does not document.

What Singapore and APAC buyers should take from the friend-foe map

For Asia-Pacific procurement teams — including Singapore enterprises that already treat model choice as a vendor-risk decision — the Meta–Anthropic pairing is a reminder that public rivalry does not equal commercial isolation. A lab that one hyperscaler criticizes in an essay can still sit inside that hyperscaler’s unreleased agent stack. RFPs that assume “Meta versus Anthropic” as a clean either-or will miss the actual bill. Watch for dual-source contracts, evaluation seats on a rival model, and last-minute spend cuts timed to someone else’s listing calendar.

APAC desks should also note what the story does not say. It does not give a Singapore-specific Hatch launch date. It does not say Meta will keep the $10 billion projection. It does not say Anthropic’s IPO is priced or filed. The useful regional takeaway is governance: counterparties can be competitors, customers, and narrative opponents in the same quarter. That pattern will show up in Southeast Asian enterprise AI buying as U.S. labs court the same CIOs.

How to log the 28 August Meta–Anthropic customer report

The primary source is <a href="https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/telcos-media-tech/meta-took-aim-anthropic-its-also-one-ai-firms-largest-customers">The Business Times’ 28 August report</a>, crediting the New York Times. Attribute the $10 billion annual projection, the hundreds-of-millions monthly run rate, Hatch testing, Friedman’s staff remark, and the possible $2 trillion valuation to unnamed people as the paper did. Attribute the August 10 essay lines to Zuckerberg. Note both companies declined comment. Readers tracking lab leadership churn can cross-link <a href="https://www.promptcrates.com/news/openai-executive-exodus-greg-brockman-day-to-day">OpenAI’s executive exodus and Greg Brockman’s day-to-day role</a> only as industry-structure context, not as a Meta fact.

Useful pin: on 28 August 2026 the Times / Business Times said Meta is one of Anthropic’s largest customers, with an internal projection as high as $10 billion a year and remaining monthly spend in the hundreds of millions; Anthropic models power and test Meta’s coming Hatch agent; Nat Friedman told some staff that using only Meta or OpenAI tools could cut Anthropic revenue before a possible ~$2 trillion IPO; Zuckerberg’s 10 August essay criticized leading labs without naming Anthropic; both firms declined comment.

Sources

• <a href="https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/telcos-media-tech/meta-took-aim-anthropic-its-also-one-ai-firms-largest-customers">Meta took aim at Anthropic. It’s also one of the AI firm’s largest customers</a> — The Business Times / NYT, 28 August 2026