Survival & Flourishing Fund’s 2025 tables print two kinds of money in the same cell. The first number is a grant. The mark next to it, ‡, is a promise: Jaan Tallinn will match other people’s gifts, up to a ceiling, if the organization raises them by a date. Add the two and you are counting money that has not moved.
That is why this page is in the report. Lightcone, METR, AI Futures, Encode, and AIPI are the names on the money trunk. The graphic prints both halves. Only one half is a wire.
SFF says the program is new for 2025. The funder matches outside donations at a rate the organization picks, from 25 cents on the dollar up to four dollars, until a deadline the organization also picks. Gifts from Tallinn, from SFF, or from groups he already funds do not count as the outside money. The organization claims the match quarterly and has to show the donor paperwork. That is their description, on the 2025 recommendations (mirror).
A second mark shows up in the same cells, a speculation line. That is money SFF already advanced. It comes off the headline before you count anything new. It is not the match.
In this report: BLUF · Research map · Report assets · Amplification scoreboard · Weekend timeline · Money graph · Thesis audit · Matching pledges · Follow-on checks · Evidence & sources
The five lines that matter
| Organization | Grant we will cite | Match on the table | What actually happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lightcone Infrastructure | $661,000 | Compact cell says +$650,000. Pledge table says $500,000 at 0.25x, deadline March 31, 2026. | The fundraiser ran and closed over its goal. After Habryka’s rate cut, the match looks like about $325,000, not $650,000. |
| METR | $0 new, once you remove the speculation already booked | $428,000 at 1x, deadline September 30, 2026 | Still a promise. METR has not said it was claimed. |
| AI Futures Project | $1,535,000 | $500,000 at 1x, deadline June 30, 2026 | Deadline passed. No public match campaign. Do not add the $500,000. |
| Encode AI Corporation | $516,000 | None | Cash figure. No second column. |
| AI Policy Institute, via the Hack Foundation | $1,635,000 | None | Cash figure. The payee is AIPI, not AIPN. |
Lightcone
This is the campus. Ronny Fernandez’s employer. The place Plz Don’t Kill Us parks its people.
The 2025 announcement headline for Lightcone’s own general support is $1,311,000. Inside it: $150,000 already advanced as speculation, and a match. Take those out and the standard grant is $661,000. That grant is the cash number.
The match is where SFF’s own pages disagree. The compact recommendations cell prints +$650,000. The matching-pledge table prints $500,000, at 25 cents on the dollar, deadline March 31, 2026. Nobody on the page explains the gap.
Oliver Habryka’s December 2025 fundraiser is the public evidence the match was actually offered. He wrote that SFF would match outside gifts up to $2.6 million. $2.6 million times 0.25 is $650,000, which is the compact figure, and it ignores the $500,000 cap sitting on the pledge table. The thermometer on that post closed at $2,621,555 and said the fundraiser was over. He also wrote that an FTX-related advance cut the rate in half, from 25 percent to 12.5 percent. At the cut rate, a full draw is about $325,000 into Lightcone.
The campaign happened. Do not publish $661,000 + $650,000 as money Tallinn sent. The grant is $661,000. The match that looks collected is on the order of $325,000. The $500,000 cap is still printed, unexplained, on SFF’s pledge table.
Post: Habryka, LessWrong, December 13, 2025.
METR
This is the evaluator Dario Amodei named.
The 2025 announcement headline is $548,000. Inside it: a $120,000 speculation grant already booked, and a $428,000 match at one dollar per outside dollar. Take those out and the new standard cash on the line is $0. The deadline is September 30, 2026. METR’s August funding update thanks SFF and does not say the match was claimed. Until a wire shows up, $428,000 is a promise with a date on it.
AI Futures
The compact table’s cash face is $1,535,000. The announcement headline is $2,035,000, and the extra $500,000 is the match, at 1x, deadline June 30, 2026. That date has passed. We did not find a public match campaign. Tallinn’s public donation ledger, last read through March 31, 2025, does not show the match going out. Treat the $500,000 as not collected unless a later ledger line says otherwise. The $1,535,000 stands on its own.
Encode and AIPI
No match mark on either row. Encode is $516,000. AIPI, paid through the Hack Foundation, is $1,635,000. Those are the numbers on the money trunk. There is no second column to go hunting for.
MIRI is the same kind of trap, one shop over. The 2025 pledge table lists a $1,392,000 match at 1x, deadline December 31, 2025. That date has passed. MIRI’s donate page talks about an employer match, not this one, and we did not find a public fundraiser thermometer. Don’t fold $1.4 million into “Tallinn funded MIRI” off that row.
Sources (live + mirrored)
| What | Live | Receipt |
|---|---|---|
| SFF 2025 recommendations, including the matching-pledge table | survivalandflourishing.fund/2025/recommendations | HTML |
| Compact recommendations (the +$650,000 cell) | survivalandflourishing.fund/recommendations | HTML |
| How SFF says a matching pledge works | survivalandflourishing.fund/matching-pledges | HTML · txt |
| Habryka fundraiser thermometer | LessWrong, December 13, 2025 | HTML · match excerpt · receipt JSON |
| METR funding update (thanks SFF; does not claim the match) | metr.org | HTML |
| Cash trunk these rows sit on | Money graph | — |
| Dollar holds on the scoreboard | Amplification scoreboard | — |
Full drawer: Evidence & sources