OpenAI Proposes $42 Billion Government Equity Stake to Democratize AI Wealth

OpenAI is exploring a proposal to grant the U.S. government a 5% equity stake in the company, according to a report from the Financial Times. Based on OpenAI’s March valuation of $852 billion, this share would be worth approximately $42.6 billion.

CEO Sam Altman has pitched the concept directly to President Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Altman frames the move as a way to democratize the economic benefits of artificial intelligence, ensuring that the American public shares in the industry’s massive growth.

The proposed framework would mirror a sovereign wealth vehicle, similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests surplus oil revenues to provide annual dividends to state residents. Altman has reportedly suggested that other industry leaders, including Meta, Google, and Anthropic, should contribute similar 5% stakes to the fund, though none of these companies have expressed interest so far.

These discussions come amid intensifying government oversight of frontier AI. Recently, the White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director requested a restricted rollout of OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 to establish a testing framework. Similarly, Anthropic faced emergency export controls in June, resulting in the lockdown of its Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models after the Defense Department flagged the company as a “supply chain risk.”

OpenAI has generally been more collaborative with the U.S. government than Anthropic, entering into several strategic partnerships that its competitor has declined.

Equity acquisition has become a primary strategy for the current administration’s tech management. Last August, the government acquired a 9.9% stake in Intel by converting CHIPS Act grants into shares—a position now valued at over $50 billion. Additionally, Nvidia and AMD agreed to surrender 15% of their China-based chip revenues in exchange for export licenses. President Trump has since remarked that the government should have negotiated an even larger stake in Intel.

The Financial Times notes that these discussions are currently in the conceptual, early stages and would likely require Congressional approval. If realized, this would mark the first time the U.S. government holds equity in a private AI firm.

For OpenAI, such a deal could provide critical leverage while the company manages a confidential IPO filing and an investigation by a coalition of 42 state attorneys general. Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders is advocating for a more aggressive approach, proposing legislation that would require major AI firms to surrender 50% of their equity to a public fund for direct payments to citizens. Since both OpenAI and Anthropic have filed for IPOs confidentially, any government stake agreed upon now would be established before the ownership dilution associated with going public.

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