Andrej Karpathy joined Anthropic on the pre-training team — building a team to accelerate research with Claude

What happened

Andrej Karpathy announced on May 19, 2026 that he is joining Anthropic on the pre-training team. He is building a new team using Claude to accelerate pre-training research — a meta-approach where AI helps train better AI. The news resurfaced in Anthropic analyses during the events of July 17, 2026.

Context and impact

Karpathy is one of the most respected figures in AI — OpenAI co-founder, Tesla AI director (Autopilot), author of popular neural network educational courses. His move to Anthropic signals where he sees the most interesting research space. Anthropic in 2026 also hired John Jumper (Nobel laureate, ex-DeepMind) and Tom Blomfield (ex-Monzo CEO).

Details

• Start date: May 19, 2026
• Role: Pre-training team — leading new team using Claude to accelerate research
• Previous roles: OpenAI co-founder, Tesla AI director, educator (karpathy.ai)
• Anthropic 2026 top hires: Karpathy, John Jumper (Nobel laureate), Tom Blomfield
• Karpathy: 'I remain deeply passionate about education and plan to resume it in time'