OpenAI has proposed giving the US government a 5% equity stake in the company as part of a broader arrangement under which Washington would hold equivalent stakes in each of the leading US artificial intelligence developers, according to the Financial Times, citing two people familiar with the talks. Chief executive Sam Altman and other OpenAI executives put forward the proposal, which could also encompass Anthropic, Alphabet's Google and Meta Platforms, though it remains unclear whether those firms would agree to participate. The White House, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta had not responded to requests for comment at the time of initial reports.
Based on OpenAI's post-money valuation of $852 billion following a funding round that closed in March, a 5% holding would be worth approximately $42.6 billion [Source: CNBC]. Altman has argued that giving the public a financial interest in the company is the best way to share the upside of artificial intelligence [Source: CNBC]. The proposed vehicle would resemble the Alaska Permanent Fund, a state-owned corporation seeded with oil revenues that pays annual dividends to residents.
Altman has discussed the stake proposal with President Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as well as with Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders in recent weeks, according to the Financial Times. Discussions are described as preliminary and early-stage. Google (GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META) are named as potential participants in any broader arrangement, though neither company has agreed to the proposal.
The talks build on more than a year of engagement between AI companies and the administration over public ownership of the sector. Altman first pitched the concept of a government stake directly to the Trump administration in early 2025, and in April OpenAI separately proposed creating a 'public wealth fund' to hold assets capturing growth in AI companies and distribute economic benefits to the public. Anthropic has also explored a 'digital dividend,' defined as payments to Americans funded by taxes on the AI sector. Trump said in June that the US taking an ownership stake in AI companies would be 'a beautiful thing' and make the American public 'partners in this revolution' [Source: CNBC]. The Trump administration has previously taken stakes in companies including Intel, IBM, and other quantum and critical minerals firms during the president's second term [Source: CNBC].
The proposal emerges against a backdrop of closer regulatory engagement between Washington and AI developers. OpenAI delayed the full public launch of GPT-5.6 at the US government's request, while the government ordered Anthropic to suspend access to its frontier AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for foreign nationals over national security concerns before lifting those restrictions. Both OpenAI and Anthropic have also confidentially filed for US initial public offerings.
Sources: Bloomberg, CNBC, RTE, The Guardian, Business Standard, Free Malaysia Today