OpenAI Offers US Government 5% Stake in AI Boom

OpenAI has floated the idea of offering the U.S. government a 5% equity stake as a way to improve relations with the Trump administration and counter growing public criticism of artificial intelligence, according to the Financial Times.

CEO Sam Altman argued that giving the public a financial interest would be the best way to share the benefits of AI. The concept was first presented to President Trump early last year.

Based on OpenAI’s latest funding round, which valued the company at $852 billion, a 5% stake would be worth approximately $42.6 billion. The discussions are still in early stages, and the proposal would also involve other U.S. AI companies giving similar stakes to the government, though it is unclear if they would agree.

The proposal comes amid the Trump administration's unusually hands-on approach to AI, which has already hindered one of OpenAI's main competitors, Anthropic, and raised concerns about future interventions. Earlier this year, the Pentagon designated OpenAI a supply chain risk, and last month the administration unexpectedly imposed export controls on its latest models, forcing their removal from the market and creating uncertainty about the global future of U.S. AI.

Public officials have shown growing interest in using policy to capture and redistribute some of the wealth generated by AI. The U.S. government has already taken a 10% stake in chipmaker Intel and reportedly demanded that Nvidia and AMD give the federal government a 15% cut of their revenue from AI chip sales to China. Senator Bernie Sanders has suggested a one-time 50% tax on AI companies' stock value to establish a sovereign wealth fund.